Happy New Year! We hope this year is off to a fantastic start for each of you. Ours is, because we just counted our totals: in 2010, our goal of 1,500 package and shipped  was met and then some as our total number of packages for the year came to 1,683!

We exceeded our goal thanks to you, our fantastic volunteers, with the help of great contributions in the past month:

• MOMS at The Met, students from Labay Middle School and the GS Troop 17146 contributed letters and holiday cards for our packages.
• The staff of Lieder Elementary School in CFISD packaged 53 boxes for our December shipment.
• Daisy Troop #15315, lead by Scarlett Poreda, filled packages for the troops to help the girls earn their service patch this month. (get photo from Rhonda!)
• Students from The Wolf School in Rhodes Island collected items and mailed them to Cypress Cares for inclusion in our packages!
• Boy Scout troop 655, the St. Timothy Charter near Jersey Village, filled and shipped 10 packages.
• Third grade brownie scout troop #15284 made some crafts for us to put into our packages. This project was spearheaded by troop leader, Carrie Carlson.
• Magnolia Cub Scout Pack 1178 filled a few boxes and shipped them to troops themselves. They had a couple of their packages mailed to service members from the CC list!
• The Interact Club of Williamsville South High School in Williamsville, NY made Christmas cards for our troop packages. Thank you Debbie Lund and Patti Shoemaker, Interact Advisors, for your support.
• Shawna Heflin and the Barry's pizza staff organized a successful pizza eating contest in October to fund packages filled by customers in November. This was a successful event!
• The final 2010 box packing event in December was fantastic: 80 boxes for Iraq and Afghanistan, 50 volunteers (including a group of students from Cy Ranch HS Key Club) two very special guests, Santa and Mrs. Clause! Thank you to Real Santa Jim (Fletcher) for coming out!  Santa Jim's support comes from personal experience as the father of an Army veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom who is the recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. The kids were thrilled to have Santa fill packages by their side!

We have one resolution for 2011: ship 1,800 packages to the troops. Check out our events page and join us for an upcoming event close to you!

Special request: In March, we need 25 Cypress Cares volunteers to help out at the Warrior Dash in Conroe. We will get $1,000 donation for every 25 volunteers that sign up. There are four shifts to work the entire weekend. If you are interested in working one or more shifts, please contact Melissa at butterfly.girl@att.net  and she will put you on the list to help out and get you the details. There is $4,500 available for us if we get the volunteers to work the full weekend, and that would be a great boost for us in 2011!