Today was my day to send my first care package to the soldier I had "adopted" a number of weeks ago. This is the person I wrote about in my post for January 6th as well as the one for January 14th. My commitment as part of the Soldiers' Angels program is to send at least one letter each week and one care package each month throughout his deployment.
Since I really wasn't sure what's needed, or for that matter appropriate, to send to a soldier overseas, I did a little internet research to look for advice and ideas. Not surprisingly, I found a number of sites that not only had ideas, but also had pre-made packages ready for shipment. In my letters, I've asked my soldier if there are particular things he'd like to receive, but since I haven't heard back yet, for now I'm relegated to putting together a somewhat generic package.
To be honest, I had considerable debate in my mind as to whether it would be better for me to go shopping for items and construct my own package or whether it was perfectly fine to simply go with a pre-made one. On the one hand, I felt like it would somehow be more meaningful if I went through the time and effort of putting it together myself. On the other hand, I suppose what matters most for the soldier is simply receiving the items, and since I don't yet have any idea what he'd really like, the pre-made package seemed as good as anything I might do.
In the end, I went with the pre-made package. It was a cold weather package that included a variety of items from warm sox to packaged soup and tea. I did it through the Soldiers' Angels site which made it that much easier as well. Hopefully I'll hear from my soldier before long and be able to tailer future packages more specifically to his needs and wants. Incidentally, if you're interested, you don't have to have "adopted" a soldier in order to send a care package. Through the Soldiers' Angels store, as well as several others, you can simply purchase and send a package to a random soldier and it can be done from you personally or even anonymously. Check it out if you have the inclination.
That is a great site to use! We did it a year or 2 ago for 25 soldiers and yes it was tough to decide what to put in! Travel size toiletries, batteries, socks and games were good along with fun food. I had my children draw pictures and wrote a note for each soldier. We received many heartwarming thanks in notes from the squad leader and soldiers. Out of sight should not mean out of mind - thank you for doing that - I think it makes a difference to each soldier that receives
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