Kate and Ernesto Shore talk about Charles, a 20-year-old Bronx resident, and Jacob, 22, from Georgia, as if they were old friends, even part of the family.

In letters, Jacob gives advice to the couple about their son. Kate describes to him the family’s Thanksgiving menu.

The Shores’ warm back-and-forth is with soldiers stationed in Afghanistan whom they have never met—and probably never will.

Over the last six years, the Shores, longtime Tribeca residents, have been a link to home for six American soldiers. As volunteers of the organization  Soldiers Angels, the Shores send two or three boxes of small gifts each month to their adopted soldiers until their tours of duty are up.

“We try to think of something that kids will like,” Ernesto says. “Chocolate, chewing gum, cookies. We’ve also gotten requests for deodorant, shaving cream, even cologne.”

They also send gifts that might help the men pass the time. Their 17-year-old daughter, Sarah, has chosen CDs she thinks would appeal to the men and Kate has sought out favorite magazines such as Motorcycle and Road and Track. In a package last month, the Shores included a Daily News with its coverage of the Yankees parade.

“Someone once said, ‘War is twenty-three hours of sheer boredom and one hour of sheer terror,’” Kate notes. 

The couple’s gift-giving began soon after Sept. 11, when Kate read about a woman who was involved with Soldiers Angels. “I looked it up online and I thought, ‘This is really nice.’ Our kids were at P.S. 234 on Sept. 11, and the generosity of people all over the country and  letters from people around the world was just astonishing.” Offering solace to young men shipped off to war, she says, seemed an appropriate way to give back to others.

Although both Kate and Ernesto have  been involved with local sports teams, neither had ever volunteered outside their community. (Although their son, Oren, Ernesto proudly recalls, did sell his toys in front of the park to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina.)

“This is so easy,” Ernesto emphasizes. “We buy stuff at Odd Lot. I go to the Church Street post office at night when there are no lines. To send a box, no insurance, is $10.”

“A lot of people who sign up for the Army,” he adds, “come from broken families or may have no families. They don’t have the kind of support kids in Tribeca have.”

The Shores hope that other Lower Manhattan families will join Soldiers Angels. They have bought several hundred holiday cards in hopes of convincing people they know to send them overseas. But, Kate concedes, “It’s been a very tough nut to crack down here. People have been very vocal against the war.”

The Shores, too, say they oppose the war. Says Kate, “This is not supporting the war, it’s supporting the soldiers we’ve sent there.”

“We do not belong there,” adds Ernesto. “I feel very strongly about that. But even though we disagree with what’s happening, there’s no reason to abandon the soliders. They’re just kids.”

The Shores receive e-mails sporadically from their soldiers, who sometimes are on the move. Other times the men are not allowed to write for security reasons.

In a recent letter, Jacob wrote, “I feel like I have made a second family. There were times when I was having a horrible day and your package and letter boosted my morale and gave me a reminder that there are people back in the states who think about us.”

“We are thinking of you each day,” the Shores wrote back, “and want you to know that the packages will keep coming until you get yourself home.”
For more information go to soldiersangels.org.