Penny Sanford Designs

Care Packages for Soldiers

We've been sending care packages to our U.S. Soldiers deployed overseas for a couple of years now. It has been a delight and a privilege I'm not sure how to put into words.

Some of these soldiers we hear from regularly and have gotten to know a bit. Some have moved onto different assignments as we hear from them only sporadically.
I wanted to share the process with you.

We joined as a volunteer with Soldiers Angels. The organization has grown so fast to now include Soldiers Angels groups for soldiers from other countries. Here is the one for Canada.

There are sub groups within Soldiers Angels to foster pets of those who are deployed, to make quilts for active duty soldiers and injured soldiers. The list of ways to volunteer is growing constantly, so please check out their website.

At this moment in time, there are 1546 soldiers who have signed up through Soldiers Angels who are waiting to be "adopted" by civilians like you and me. When Gordon and I first signed up to "adopt" a soldier, there were 30-something soldiers awaiting adoption.

This difference in the number of waiting soldiers may reflect a growing number of soldiers who are signing up with Soldiers Angels who need a caring connection to back home. Or it may reflect a diminishing concern about our troops because of the economy or because of changing attitudes in the media.

We get our approved APO Priority Boxes from the U.S. Postal Service...for free. We order them online here in groups of 25, delivered right to our PO Box. You can also pick them up (free) from your local post office. I gather if we only used a street address, we could let them be delivered to our doorstep.

There is something on the website about this one price shipping cost for this 12" x 12" x 5.5" box being less than if one shipped this same size box to a "regular" address in the states. It does not matter how heavy this box is. If it fits, it ships.

We've had some interesting requests. This box above has a big batch of cornbread. I hope it arrives still moist and crunchy. We'll find out when he receives his box. Another soldier specifically requested peanut butter because at his location, any arrival of peanut butter at the PX was sold out as soon as it arrived.

I have learned that nothing goes to waste. If one soldier does not like a particular cookie I send, he gives it to his buddies. In fact, I have gleaned that almost every care package is shared with other soldiers.

The main difficulty on our end has been having enough cookies to ship by the time Monday rolls around. The best baking time around here is on the weekends, but Unc and Gordon also love these home-made cookies.

The box that shipped out this week (in the picture above) is to a SFC who teasingly suggested my two fellers leave HIS cookies and cornbread alone this time or he would put some guards on the cooling goodies to make sure ALL of his baked goodies arrived in Iraq on schedule.  *laugh*

I'm headed back to the kitchen this afternoon to bake some more cookies for the next box. Right now we are shipping to four soldiers in Iraq, Iraq, Afghanistan, and one in Colorado (headed to Afghanistan soon).

Gordon and Unc are doing their part to get me back in the kitchen mixing up more cookies this afternoon. We make it an assembly line. Gordon watches the cookies in the oven so  not a single one burns, then he takes them off the trays and puts them on the cooling racks. Unc washes the cookie trays and the mixing bowls, etc. I mix up the from-scratch cookies and drop them onto trays, etc.

Gordon and Unc get to eat every broken cookie, something I blogged about here. Fun memories. Fun shared times. I hope our adopted soldiers get even a quarter of the enjoyment from these care packages as we derive from baking and packing them.

Here is one more Soldiers Angels story about a fallen soldier from Mississippi and his parents who fought hard to get his K-9 partner back to Mississippi to be adopted by their family.

A Mississippi Hero with two and four legs

Today near Jackson, a K-9 Marine met folks and shared as best as he could what happened to his handler, Marine Cpl Dustin Jerome Lee on a fateful day in March in 2007, in Falujah, Iraq. Dustin was killed during the attack, and his faithful companion, Lex, was also injured.

Lex still has shrapnel in his back and rear that makes walking difficult and painful.

Here are Jerome and Rachael Lee, the parents of the Mississippi Marine killed in that Falujah attack.

The family is from the Meridian or Quitman area.
Lex was retired two years early because of his injuries, and the Lee family was able to adopt him.

Here is the website for Dustin Lee. We've been fapped tonight, so our Internet service is slower than a snail on Xanax. I've not been able to download the site past the brown wallpaper, so I can't yet read the story of this Mississippi Marine who died for his country.

Carol Davis, the Mississippi Community Team Leader for Soldiers Angels shared these pictures today from the meet-and-share-war-stories event among the rocking chairs on the front porch of the Cracker Barrel in Pearl, MS.

According to Davis, this is a popular national program, Operation Outreach.  Wounded warriors from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., come in a van to scheduled events around the country to sit on the front porch and visit with local wounded warriors from the two Gulf Wars and warriors from previous wars "and tell war stories like back in the old days," Davis said.

The U-Haul company and Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores teamed up for the funding and logistics of this Wounded Warrior Project: Operation Outreach.  You can click on a region of the country to see when some wounded warriors will be coming to visit and share in your neck of the woods.

Gordon and I wanted to attend this event in Pearl today, but responsibilities kept us here on the farm.

I'm so appreciative to Carol Davis for sharing the photos by email and links to read about the Lee family.

Surely someone with connections to Mississippi State University School of Veterinary Medicine in Starkville, MS, can get Lex in for some free surgery to remove that shrapnel that is causing him pain with every step he takes!

I would have cried had I been there in person today. I cried just writing this post tonight, trying to empathize with the loss in this Mississippi family. I cannot imagine the pain in the Lee family, but I'm sure Lex is a gift from God to help them handle the loss of their son. You go, Lex!

You may remember that Gordon and I adopted a soldier through Soldiers Angels a few months back. There are many ways to show support for our troops, but we chose the adoption route where we send a letter each week and a care package every month. So far, we've sent six letters and three care packages (one every two weeks).

It takes about two weeks for a letter or package to reach our soldier, so we want him to have a piece of mail or a box every week. At least I think I have the delivery schedule worked out.

I'm always looking for recipes that will ship into 120 degree Fahrenheit weather and last for 2 weeks in transit without spoiling. DAR friend Homie Holly has sent an apple cake to her brother  under similar circumstances. I'm waiting for her recipe and packaging instructions.

I'll be sharing these recipes with you.

 

Yippee! We heard from our Adopted Soldier!

This was a treat for the day after July 4th!

We received a letter from the soldier we "adopted" through Soldiers Angels!

Unc brought the letter back from the Post Office Saturday morning, and he and Mama were just as excited as Gordon and I to hear from "our soldier".

Four letters and two care packages into our committment, I had almost decided that we had adopted one who did not like to write!

In my last letter, I even playfully encouraged him to write or we would put horse laxative in some future brownies, or we would start to send him girlie things, or we would put itching powder in something. HA!

Turns out, our adopted soldier is quite good at expressing himself. He is entertaining and has a good sense of humor. He writes a great letter.

We really don't expect him to write often.  We just need some feedback about what is in the care packages and what he likes, etc.

He mentioned receiving the second package and loving the home made cookies.

Now I am wondering if he received the first package that also contained home-made cookies.

It is not like I am going to jump on a mail truck and investigate the path these packages take to reach the soldiers. You know, one just likes to know that the package arrived.

My business persona may be leaking over into this non-business activity like sending stuff to brighten the day of this soldier. I've had to laugh at myself for putting notes in the packages about what was in the letters and for listing in the letters what was shipped in the packages....just like I would do with an order for porcelain. Gracious me! No need for so much efficiency!

This adopted soldier thing feels good and right. Unc even teared up a little while remembering how he felt when he received a letter from home when he was in Japan.

I'll have to look for some of Unc's WWII V-mail and some of the mail from Uncle D's stint in Korea. Now I'm glad we saved it. It brings those wars to life...makes them real, ya know?