From America with love, soccer balls for soldiers

As the federal government continues to pour billions of dollars into military efforts and infrastructure projects in Iraq, two Princeton alums are working to create a more civilian-based source of funds for the country's on-the-ground needs.

Matt Scherrer '01 and Kate Buzicky '02 created a website called Beyond Orders that targets Iraqi citizens' and American soldiers' day-today demands for supplies and equipment.

The site coordinates their needs with Americans who are eager to help with the war effort. Military officials in Iraq can post orders for anything from soccer balls to medical supplies to be financed and shipped by U.S. civilians back home.

Scherrer said he hopes his efforts will help quell the unrest currently engulfing the country. "If [Iraqi children] are just twiddling their thumbs, they can find bad things to do as they get older, like setting up roadside bombs," he said. "If you set up soccer leagues with our equipment, you can help avoid that."

Though Beyond Orders started out by shipping goods to a single battalion in the airborne division, it has expanded to serve at least two-dozen units.

Buzicky drew a distinction between the projects the U.S. government funds in Iraq and what Beyond Orders focuses on. "The American government has been attempting to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq, [but] our niche is the things soldiers and people need on a daily basis," she said.

Captain Patrick Donohue '03, who serves in Iraq with the 1st cavalry division, 2nd brigade, lauded Scherrer and Buzicky's efforts. "The website has provided us with a vast number of supplies that we can use to leverage our other efforts," he said in an email.

Donohue, a former Princeton ROTC member who has worked with Beyond Orders to distribute toys to Iraqi children, added that he thinks the site has also helped ease tensions in some Iraqi localities. "It's much easier to convince a local Iraqi council member to help curb the corruption within his neighborhood when we can promise the delivery of hundreds of soccer balls to the surrounding schools," he said.

Beyond Orders' website was launched in November 2006 by then-Harvard junior Tin Yun Ho, who recruited West Point senior Rajiv Srinivasan and Scherrer to help make the project a reality. At the time, Scherrer was pursuing an MBA at Harvard. Ho had originally conceived the idea for Beyond Orders that summer.

Scherrer, who completed four years of ROTC at Princeton before serving in Iraq as a platoon leader in the 75th ranger regiment, said he was able to contribute firsthand experience to bring Ho's idea to fruition. "He didn't have a lot of background to connect with the U.S. military in Iraq," he said. "I knew people in Iraq, I have had contact with the Iraqi people ... and I also had a good knowledge of military supply chains."

Fundamentally, Scherrer said, Beyond Orders sought to find a solution to the high costs of shipping supplies to civilians in Iraq. While military supplies are usually shipped in bulk by military cargo jets, he said, this method is generally too costly for sending supplies to ordinary Iraqis.

"How we were able to crack the code was that we were able to send care packages, as you would send to a soldier," he said. "We just take out the chocolate chip cookies and put in things that could help the Iraqi people and their relationship with the military."

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Buzicky, who joined the Beyond Orders team in October 2006 during her final year at Harvard Law School, had trained with Scherrer in Princeton's ROTC. She later spent two years studying at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.

Beyond Orders has attracted attention at several college campuses, Scherrer said, with students at Harvard, West Point and Tufts actively filling orders posted on the website. Though no students from the University are currently part of the project, Scherrer said he and his colleagues "would love to have some Princeton students get involved."

Donohue said he is pleased by the service his unit has received thanks to Beyond Orders' efforts. "The generosity of the people back home really surprised me," he said. "Almost all bent over backwards to supply us with the stuff we needed. The delivery process has been nothing but seamless."