BELPRE - A Mid-Ohio Valley native serving the United States military overseas received a surprise for Thanksgiving from a local company.
Levi Crider, a specialist with the Army's 101st Airborne division stationed in Afghanistan, sent a fan email to Mister Bee Potato Chip Co. and last week received a package from the Parkersburg company, said his grandmother Bonny Barber of Belpre.
Crider told Barber he wanted Ramen noodles, Mister Bee chips and energy drink, Barber said, and then sent Mister Bee an email about how much he missed its chips. "He told us he thought the company had forgotten about his email or it didn't get to the right person because he didn't get a response until the box arrived."
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Levi Crider, a specialist with the Army’s 101st Airborne division stationed in Afghanistan, received a surprise gift from Mister Bee Potato Chip Co. last week after sending the Parkersburg company a fan email.
Just in time for Thanksgiving, a five-pound bag of the original Mister Bee potato chips arrived for Crider, 23, a Belpre High School graduate, at his post from the company.
"We are very military supportive and when I read his email, I thought this was something we could do to make him feel just a little better," said Karla Reeves with the company.
Barber said that when she and her husband talked with Crider over Skype on Thanksgiving night he was eating out of the large bag of chips.
"It made his week just a little bit better," she said. "He told us he had a rough day and having those chips was like having a little bit of home so far away."
Crider was shipped to the Middle East on Labor Day and is expected to be there through next year.
"We do ship product overseas quite frequently and military requests are very dear to us," Reeves said.
Barber said with this act of kindness from the local company she would like to donate to the company to help it send more chips to local troops deployed overseas.
"I know he will always remember this because it gave him a part of home when he couldn't be here and wanted to the most," Barber said. "I really appreciate whoever it was at Mister Bee for making the day for Levi.
"They don't know him from Adam, but they really gave him something special and I would like to pay it forward to pay for shipping a bag of chips to someone else," she said.
