Welcome to the forum all newbies

Hi! I'm still trying to get the hang of this forum, it might take me awhile.   I'm not completely new to this forum (I was a forum lurker before, but just now decided to join and actually post)

Let's see, a little bit about myself: I was born and raised in California (as you can see), but currently in Seattle,WA for college.  Um, well, I actually found this site my senior year in high school when we had to write a letter to a servicemember as part of a Civics assignment.  I just recently "rediscovered" the site, and can't stay off it! I'm so proud of the men and women that are risking their lives over there, and love that there's a website completely dedicated to supporting them, go Marty!!

Hello hello .. I am just a CA girl .. I've heard about this site from my fellow offroad racing familia. Figured it was time to check it out, and get serious and send some packages of "thanks" to our soldiers overseas. While I may be a n00b to this forum, I am not new to forums in general.I am well aware of forum etiquette, the search function, bandwith, etc. haha!

 So far I have read a lot of great insightful information and received some great ideas just from browsing the site. My mom and I have already purchased some items for the unit we've selected to send a package to ... we're going to open it up to the offroad organization we are a large part of as well.. That way others will have a hand in it, we can get that much more items, and the offroad DVD's, magazine companies, etc. will step up. I am pretty excited!

Hey ya'll!

 My name is Renee and I heard about this site from my coworker, Wanette, a few months back. Wanette had been talking about the soldiers she has kept in touch with for years and how they sometimes feel forgotten about and need to be encouraged. I am now working on my 5th box and I have to say I am addicted! Everytime I go shopping I am always looking for things a soldier might like and each box is getting better! This is my first time to make Christmas boxes and it is so fun to encourage and support our troops in this way.

2 Corinthians 9:7 "....God loves a cheerful giver." 

Hi, my name is Niki and I live in Santa Cruz, CA.  I rediscovered this site a few months ago.  I had sent a package a few years ago, but the postage was extremely high, so I didn't continue.  But with all that is going on, I just had to do something.  Thank goodness, I checked out the site again, and with the flat-rate boxes, I can again participate.  I belong to a group of 12 women who meet once a month, so I got them to contribute.  We just sent off two boxes.  I was amazed at how much I could get in the large box.

 My family is going to contribute at our Thanksgiving dinner, so I should be sending more boxes.  My husband and I retired 12 years ago and moved to the "beach."  We have three grown children and three grandchildren.

 I will definitely continue to contribute to our amazing service personnel.

 

Greetings from the Midwest! Recently moved back here from Hawaii.  I am a newbie to this, but have had a bit of experience mailing stuff. My sis lived in japan for a year and a half, and I sell online. I am so glad to have found a real community that wants to help the soldiers! I posted on another site, but quickly became discouraged when it looked more and more  like an online bar.

I know it's not much, but I want to help. I will be lurking for a while till i get the hang of all this. :P

 

Thanks for this online community and the opportunity to help!

 

Beck

 

Welcome all you newcomers to the AS family.  Hope you have as much fun as we all do...I am sure you will find it rewarding. 

Niki I am not sure where in California you are as compared to where packages ship out, but you may be fairly close to the point where the FPO AP packages are shipped.  If so, it may be cost effective to ship regular boxes there as opposed to the FRBs.  When you look at the contacts info, it tells you at the top if they are AE or  AP.  The AP addresses ship out of California and the AE ones go through NY.  I live in upstate NY and rarely use FRBS when shipping to AE addresses since that is close to me.  If I pick a contact with the AP address, I always find FRBs to be cheaper.  But I prefer to ship to AE addresses to get more bang for the buck.  So this is something you may want to check out.  Regardless, have great fun shipping to our heroes!

Kathy

 Hello There,

 My name is Clair and i'm a student from England.  I sent my first two packages out yesterday and was it an experience!  After spending about 40 minutes filling out customs forms *shiver* the packages were finally on the way!  I don't have any friends or family in the American military but I wanted to do a good deed  for christmas and what better than to bring a smile to the face of a soldier   And yes, this site is very addictive, I check it daily now

Good morning!  I'm a married mother of a 4-year-old daughter living in a suburb of Houston, TX.  I'm very excited about sending my first few packages - I have addresses for a Marine and a soldier in the Army.  I've read the foums regarding the "junkies" and I can already see the tendency in myself - lol.  I keep adding stuff and adding stuff and worrying about if it's the "right" stuff and coming up with ideas for other stuff and OMG!!  I think once these first boxes are gone, I'll be able to focus a little better.  That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.  :-)

This site and the folks who support the soldiers are an inspiration.  Thank you all so much for your hard work and I hope very much to become a regular around here!

Shana

 I love seeing new people get addicted to supporting the Armed Forces. It is all good. Boosting morale is important in human nature. Each time you fill a box or send a letter, you are really sending happiness and kindnesses and well, just loving thoughts. Keep up the good work. God Bless.

 Hello,

My name is Laura and I'm a small business owner: I design and publish websites to sell advertising space on them.  One of the things I've been researching / writing about lately is shipping policies, guidelines, costs, etc..  when shopping online. I've been pointing out APO/FPO ordering guidelines on my site and while searching for info I came across anysoldier.com.  What a great idea.  I've already posted a link to this site on my Facebook.

I'm Ruthie from Indiana and I am a Blue Star Mom and a quilter. I have a son in Afghanistan and his lovely wife sends him lots of packages, but there are a lot of solders that don't get much mail at all. That's where we all come in. My problem is that I want to send to all of them! I coordinated a Stockings for Soldiers project and we sent out over 120 stockings to deployed troops last month.

 

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for your introductions and joining us in our effort to give hope to our troops.

Your support is appreciated,

door 

okay, i hadnt even considered this stuff from a financial perspective : but while i wanted to "diversify" my christmas outreach , ie send to as many different units as possible : i faced some challenges :

i had 500 xmas cards ready to send. it then ocurred to me that sending even two larger packets ( of say 200 / 300 cards )  is cheaper than sending several of smaller quantiites : for the simple fact that you pay a certain amount just for the postage, then additional by weight, but its more cost effective to send two packages with hundreds of cards each, than say : 50 to this address, 50 to that one, 30 to that one....etc

if anyone knows how i might be able to get postage subsidized ( for the next time ), i've already done sent out everything for my xmas project / then it would help me to reach out to varying units, not just two as i chose to this time.

 the 2nd thing : and i feel bad for saying this : but i passed over a particular potential contact ( i did NOT request the address, simply scanned the description written by the point of contact ) and chose not to pick that one b/c : although the point of contact claimed to be a 1st SGT, the description was so full of spelling and grammatical errors that i actually found it to be suspect, to where i doubted the very authenticity of it.   I'm not saying I'm looking for sophisticated descriptions, but that one honestly had to have been written by a 3rd - grader it seemed, hence i passed over it.  ( ive been around the mil for the better part of my life as a dependent, and it was hard to believe the person writing was who they claimed to be ) 

There were plenty more that were better written ( and thus seemed more credible ).  I honestly would like feedback on this, and how do those of you that do this routinely decide who to write / not write to ? 

 

we received help for shipping from our local American Legion and the Navy Club Auxiliary. They often have the funds to help with shipping overseas.