advice on sending care packages

[cassie121]

Hey ya'll,

I lead my school's morning prayer group. We would like to do some service projects. One great one I thought we could do would be to send care packages. However; to my knowledge none of us have family overseas so we're not sure where to send it to. Also does anyone know things partically appreciated and anything particularly NOT appreciated in said packages?

God bless,

Cas

 

[jcook922]

Hey ya'll,

I lead my school's morning prayer group. We would like to do some service projects. One great one I thought we could do would be to send care packages. However; to my knowledge none of us have family overseas so we're not sure where to send it to. Also does anyone know things partically appreciated and anything particularly NOT appreciated in said packages?

God bless,

Cas

I know Air Force side you can get a hold of a Family Readiness point of contact and figure something out with them. They usually handle donations, there's probably some online services out there that do it as well and all the branches have some equivalent or another. Things appreciated.. Smokes, console video games, gloves, blankets, magazines, DVDs, things like that. As much as the troops would appreciate it, no alcohol, as a deployed environment like that is supposed to be a dry zone.

 

[Gwenyfur]

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington , D.C. 20307-5001

Address for cards and poguey bait for recovering servicemembers as well...

Also if you're close to a VA where some of our guys are being sent for extended physical therapy etc...they'd love visits, cards, books, etc...

Any military base has a community liason office...they are more than willing to handle any care packages and give you addresses to direct them to

 

[cassie121]

Thanks for the advice you guys but just to make it clear. This is HIGHSCHOOL...anything that wouldn't be permitted on campus would certainly not be permitted to be sent in care packages.

 

[nataliexcore]

well if you're sending them overseas to iraq or afghanistan (i TOTALLY reccommend that, even if they dont have time to write you back whatever you send is greatly appreciated ), no inappropriate content (duh), alcohol (duh), or things that could melt. don't mix food with like deoderant cos then they'll end up with old spice flavored cookies. the things i send is like, dvds, magazines, cards, dice, socks, the sports page from my newspaper, anything. remember they're in a war zone with not a lot of anything. things to remind em of the states is nice too. it's nice to send home baked stuff, i send pumpkin bread and snickerdoodles and cake mix cookies with caramel chips and lots of goodies to keep em full lol. plus if you send food, they always share the stuff with other guys/gals in their unit. ground starbucks coffee is nice too! i sent some to my buddy in iraq and he left it by the coffee maker so everyone got a little starbucks goodness. be creative tho, they can use almost ANYTHING you send. imagine being stuck in the desert with the bare neccessities, what would you want? i sent mad libs too since im sure none of them had seen those since the 5th grade haha. just be creative. other than inappropriate content or alcohol there's not much you CAN'T send, but be logical and remember stuff breaks and goes through oven like temps to get there to if you don't think it can last 2 weeks in a box don't send it.

also, when packaging the stuff, my rule is if you can chuck the sealed box against the wall without anything breaking, then it's good to go.

another tip, use USPS flat rate boxes! it can be as heavy as you want basically and it's still the same price to mail it. the boxes are free, and you can order them online and get them delivered to your door free of charge.
site:
http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/sto...storeId=10001&catalogId=10152&productId=36604


more sites:
http://www.soldiersangels.com/
http://www.anysoldier.com/index.cfm
^ that's a great site, lots of info and ideas, and you can get addresses of people overseas. they even tell you what they need. =]

 

[Teufelhund]

Book are always awesome, but there's a good chance that they'll be unread. Watch the sweets depending on where you are sending them to, in Afghanistan that's probably fine in Iraq, we had boxes and boxes and boxes just filled with sweets. We probably had at one time enough sweets that we could have probably survived off of the sweets alone. Anything that reminds people of home is nice, I like newspapers. Beef Jerky is awesome esp. if you can get your hands on nice beef jerky, as they have standard beef jerky at the PX at least where they have PXs, movies are always nice, although I bought Haji movies usually and those are fairly cheap. Anyways the main thing is that you send stuff, getting the package and knowing that people are thinking about you is more than enough in fact I would say that's the best part. I got a pillow from my fiancee when I was in Iraq and it just made my day, even though it wasn't anything big or anything like that, it was from her. So just keep in mind that out there you are really really isolated from people back home so things that remind you of those people or those places are the best types of things you could possibly send.

 

[Autumnleaf]

Send letters of admiration.

 

[daveleau]

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington , D.C. 20307-5001

Address for cards and poguey bait for recovering servicemembers as well...

Also if you're close to a VA where some of our guys are being sent for extended physical therapy etc...they'd love visits, cards, books, etc...

Any military base has a community liason office...they are more than willing to handle any care packages and give you addresses to direct them to

We sent a few Christmas cards to this address and they were returned as undeliverable.


If you send care packages (always welcome while deployed), be sure you know where the person is and the limitations. For instance, Bibles in Saudi Arabia are forbidden and confiscated when soldiers land (or at least some of my brothers have reported to me).

Beef jerky is great. As are small seasoning bottles, as the MREs and services food gets old. Books are great, if they are small. You can always send a lot so the soldier can share, but try to make the sizes of things in the care packages small as people have little space on deployments.

Letters of encouragement are also great, as was already mentioned. Remind them that God is with them and that He loves them.

In Christ,
Dave

 

[Autumnleaf]

James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific. Its probably sold cheap at your local used book store.

A good read for men needing other than the recent politically correct nonsense.

I am a former Marine Sergeant FYI.