Hi Volunteers,
We are off to a great start for the Holidays! We assembled and shipped more than 9,000 packages on our
opening day, hitting our first milestone of the season: The 700,000th package!
We still have much work to do before the end of the year and hope you will join us as we aim for the next Milestone: the
750,000th Care Package on December 17th.
Throughout the next two months, we will be assembling our regular care packages, as well as the Battalion Buddy Packages for the children of deployed troops, and the Wounded Warrior Care Packages for our recuperating heroes abroad and at home. These packages may be built on Assembly or Prep days, so please join us on both types of days when available.
In addition,
please consider working the afternoon shifts! We regularly have many volunteers for the morning shift, and we do not want you to feel that we have more volunteers than we need. You assistance is critical to accomplishing our goals, so whatever time works into your schedule is great with us. But, when possible, if you can join us in the afternoon, you may get that job you really want! And...you will be in attendance for the fun new
Door Prizes we will raffle off at the end of each Assembly day!
For those looking for volunteer work at home, we have a very important job for you:
Reading and screening letters! This is a critical job, as we are very vigilant to ensure that only appropriate letters are sent in our care packages. We have a
Letter Reading Class this Sunday, October 30th at Noon (at the end of the Prep Day activities) at the armory. Please join us so you can start working on this project at home. If you have any questions about screening letters, please contact the Supervisor in charge: Linda Barber at
lindalebar@yahoo.com And
don't forget about those hand-made scarves and letters too!
Please note that the Armory is closed on Friday, November 11 for Veterans Day.
and can always be found on our website:
Schedule.
Please be sure to check the website for last minute updates.
Generous restaurants and/or groups provide lunch for our volunteers on scheduled Assembly days. So that we may order the appropriate amount of food, and not overburden our lunch providers, please let us know if you plan to join us for lunch (either after volunteering with us in the morning, or if you will arrive early for the afternoon shift). We encourage you to join us for our presentation/program from 12:00-12:30, even if you can not stay on for lunch.
Don't forget to "like" us on
Facebook, "follow" us on
Twitter and check out our
Blog for all the latest news about Operation Gratitude and to see troop photos, letters and stories. You will also learn about all the exciting
promotions we have going on this holiday season.
You've probably heard the news that President Obama announced the U.S. will pull out all of its troops from Iraq by the end of the year. We are very happy for the military families who will be reunited but are mindful that 80-100,000 Military personnel will still serve in harm's way in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more will serve aboard ships at sea. They still need to know they are supported! We must not let them down.Thank you again for all your dedication to our troops. We look forward to seeing you at the Armory!
Love,
