Holiday Mail for Heroes 2009

Partnering with the Department of Defense, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Pitney Bowes, Inc., the Red Cross is sending holiday greeting cards to recovering service members in military hospitals.

Last year I wrote about the Holiday Mail for Heroes campaign and I received great feedback from all of you.

This year, the goal of the campaign remains the same: to recruit Americans to send holiday cards with messages of thanks and cheer to service members, veterans and their families. Through this campaign, American service men and women in the U.S. and around the world will receive a much needed touch of home during this holiday season.

There are over 1.4 million men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces and over 24 million veterans who have served in the past. Let’s show our appreciation by making sure that each one of them receives a word of encouragement during the holidays.

While preparing your holiday greetings, please follow these guidelines:

Do…

Sign all cards
Address cards “Dear Service Member, Family or Veteran”
Limit cards to 15 per person or 50 for school class or business group
Bundle groups of cards in single, large envelopes (there is no need to include individual envelopes and postage for cards)
Mail cards to this address:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Don’t…

Send letters
Include personal information such as home or email addresses
Use glitter – excessive amounts can aggravate health issues of wounded recipients
Include inserts of any kind as they must be removed in the screening process

Please mail all cards before December 7, 2009.

You can also do more than send in cards. The Red Cross has established a holiday gift catalog that lists several different contributions you can make to provide much-needed items for service members, such as phone cards and “comfort kits”.

My family and I plan to do our part to share some holiday cheer with our brave service men and women who are protecting America. I hope you will do the same.

Stay Strong,

Question: Do you have any active duty service men or women in your family?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tagged as: Causes, holiday

{ 8 comments }

1 WeaselMomma November 21, 2009 at 5:06 am: This is a great idea and I plan to participate. Thanks for posting and promoting such a worthy cause.
2 Eric November 21, 2009 at 6:11 am: My brother just left for Afghanistan a couple weeks ago. First time over there.
3 Jason @ The Devoted Dad November 21, 2009 at 3:50 pm: Thanks for bringing my attention to it. We are always looking for things to do and helping bring words of encouragement to our service men and women is a great way to spread the holiday cheer. We do plan to participate.
4 PC Nena X November 21, 2009 at 4:24 pm: Wonderful post, thanks for the direct info on how to’s. I know many folks that have good intentions but just need a bit of direction, such as myself. My family and I wanted to find something new to add to our list of holiday family traditions and I think this one right here is an excellent one to add to the list for us. Thank you Mocah Dad.
5 SurprisedMom November 22, 2009 at 4:01 pm: This is a wonderful thing you’re doing and I think we’ll be adding this to our holiday tradition! Thanks for posting about it and bringing it to my and your other readers attention!
6 Andrew aka DadontheRise November 22, 2009 at 5:27 pm: I enjoy all your posts and have nominated you for the Honest Scrap award. Please check out my Honest Scrap post for details on how to participate.
7 Gloria Huang November 23, 2009 at 9:59 am: Hi! I work at the Red Cross on the social media team, and I just wanted to thank you for your support for the Holiday Mail program. We really appreciate it! Thanks again, and best wishes for the holidays
8 Crystal @ Simply Being Mommy December 2, 2009 at 8:49 pm: I don’t have any family members that are currently active service men but I still plan on participating. This is a great idea and an easy way to show our service members just how important they are to us.