Hello to you, our faithful friends and supporters! April was a very productive month for Cypress Cares and our mission. With your help, we were able to fill more than 450 boxes for our Soldiers! Here are some details about our packages:

·          April showers might bring Mayflowers, but our April showered us with cookies from Girl Scouts left and right! These generous donations are by far our most popular package filler. The Soldiers are definitely asking for "Samoa" of those! Thanks to the following troops for donating cookies:  Brownie Troop 14314, GS Troops 16221, 15237, 13344, 13341, and 13415, and, Cadette troop 16137

·          The Woods Edge Church box packing resulted in 81 packages with congregation members involved in the church's military ministry team. This group also collected funds to pay for almost the entire package shipping, as well. Special thanks to LTC Jeff and Sandra Presnal for inviting us to help out with the box packing again this year.

·          At Prince of Peace Catholic Community, our box packers were met with "organized chaos with a purpose" on April 3, as one of the lucky volunteers stated. The church community gathered items throughout the Lent season and it resulted in a ton of goodies. Very impressive effort by the team and volunteers, and especially Mrs. Mary Davis who approached Prince of Peace with the idea to support our troops through Cypress Cares. We filled more than 200 USPS Flat Rate boxes and then started piling the goodies into larger leftover brown boxes. There was enough filler for more than 450 flat rate boxes from that one packing. We'll try to announce the final count next month. We look forward to working with Prince of Peace on this event again next year!  Special thanks to: students of Cy Ranch HS NHS, ladies from the Copperfield Women's Club and American Heritage Girls troop 2928, Girl Scouts troops 13344 and 16431. Also, a very special thanks to our guest speaker, LTC (ret) Jeff Presnal who reminded us how our efforts to support the troops boost morale among our troops and is also, and most importantly, a continuation of the life lessons we learn in our churches every week. We are truly blessed by the number of people who help further the mission of Cypress Cares. Bulk donations received this month, separate from what was collected at the church: Longwood Vet Clinic again gathered items that found their way to us, and were put into the packages filled at Prince of Peace!

On a final note, for all of you aspiring singers out there ... if you're in doubt ... maybe you shouldn't try it out! [Smile]. Several weeks ago, a group from Cypress Cares attended a tryout session for America's Got Talent filmed here in Houston. In case you're wondering why - Cypress Cares received a check based on the number of people we brought to the show. It was fun, but we still have a tendency to shudder when thinking about some of the acts. Apparently, not everyone has talent! Fun while it lasted, albeit painful to listen to at times, it is one experience we'll check off and not revisit again!