Holiday Care Packages for Soldiers

If you are looking for a great place to give service this holiday season, you might want to consider sending holiday care packages to our men and women in uniform.  Care packages are a welcomed treat this time of year, when soldiers are separated from their families–often times in places that don’t uphold our same traditions.

The best way to start is to find deployed troops through family and friends.  The military no longer allows you to address packages to “any soldier” for obvious security reasons.  So, ask around, and find out if you can send a package to a specific troop.  If so, ask what the they might like as well.  They may be in a location where sending chocolate only ends in a melted mess–or they can’t get a certain kind of breakfast cereal.  If you don’t know anyone specifically, try calling your closest military base and letting them know what you would like to do.  Ask them HOW to address the package and WHAT is best received.

There are also tons of organizations that you can pair up with if you don’t want to do it on your own.  The Red Cross is doing a card/letter drive that you can join in on.  You write a letter/card, and they disperse them to military personnel.  {Click HERE for more information}.  It’s a great solution if you want to show your gratitude, but don’t have a ton of money to ship items.  Other organizations like Operation Gratitude and the USO will walk you through making a donation or sending a package.

If you want to send items, just know that each location has different rules on what you can and cannot send…In general, you can only send certain quantities of non-Islamic religious materials, you can’t send pork products, homemade goodies {unless you specifically know the person}, etc.  So, some more neutral ideas include:

• BEEF jerky
• Canned foods
• Sunflower seeds
• Cereals {I think those little boxes of assorted cereals would be kind of fun} or cereal bars
• Toiletries {for men and women} like deodorant, wipes, feminine products, ponytail holders, toothbrushes, shampoos, etc.}.  The post office recommends putting these in ziploc bags in case they spill, it doesn’t ruin the entire package.
• Games {board games, cards, crossword puzzles, etc.}.
• Magazines {they are very strict about even partial nudity, so even the Swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated might not fly}
• Frisbees
• Footballs

The U.S. Postal service can walk you through shipping–and they provide FREE boxes if you are shipping to the troops.  You will need to fill out a customs form–which you can do by printing it online or you can get it at the post office.  The post office also has military package flat rate pricing, which makes sending a package incredibly affordable.

Here’s a date guideline for shipping from the USPS website:

To ensure that holiday mail and packages are delivered in time for Christmas, the Postal Service recommends the following mailing and shipping deadlines:

• Dec. 2   – First-Class Mail International
• Dec. 2   – Priority Mail International
• Dec. 10 – Priority Mail Express International
• Dec. 15 – Standard Post
• Dec. 17 – Global Express Guaranteed
• Dec. 20 – First-Class Mail
• Dec. 20 – Priority Mail
• Dec. 23 – Priority Mail Express*

The dates listed above are the earliest deadlines for international and military mail.

Do any of YOU have family members who might benefit from receiving care packages during the holidays?  If so, make sure to leave the information in the comments below so peeps can hook them up!

~Mavis

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