I am excited because now I have some warriors to correspond with weekly. I cannot send a package each week but I would like to put "something" in the envelope with my letter.

Any ideas what that "something" can be?

 Hi Deb,

    I'm sure you'll get lots of ideas from junkies in time. 

One of the items I send are business sized Thank You cards that I order from  DearAmericanHero.com.  

  I also order free postcards and my own thank you cards from VistaPrint.com. 

The troops enjoy seeing photos of the people who they get letters from, and also pictures of anything that reminds them of home. 

Book marks are nice.   

I've heard some have sent a stick of wrapped gum or a fruit leather stick.

You could also send a blank card and envelope from them to write home with.  

Waiting to get more ideas from others who will respond to your post.   

Any kind of Public Domain images you can print on your computer - sports, patriotic, current holidays - whatever your contacts are interested in.  Public domains are copyright free some useable as long as you give credit to source.  Do a search on 'public domain' to get the rules and regs.  NASA has done of lot useable photography of famous landmarks etc and there are also a lot of clipart sites of cool stuff - you need to do a bit of searching and then give credit but it's worth the searching - esp with Super Bowl coming up etc. you might find some pirate stuff there:)

Have fun,

Ann

Maps of their homestate or any US State (free from AAA); magazine section of the Sunday paper; sports section of the paper-esp for guys; chapstick; miniature Hershey bars; males copies of comics from on-line sites.

americangreetings.com has free ecards to send to military if you have their email address.

One of the things I like to include is a photo.. It can be of just about anything. The most comments I got were photos I took of flowers in my yard. They were close up shots of individual flowers. I also send photos of things that show the seasons (Changing leaves, kids playing at the pool, Christmas lights etc) Other than that I include articles from the sports page or Sunday comics. I also buy those individual wrapped pieces of beef jerky that are about 8" long and flat and include one of them or a couple drink mix packets.  It seems like I get more response from my letters with just a little something than I do from packages, so I know they are appreciated.

Kathy

For female soldiers, I do stickers a lot. Just about any kind works - seasonal, flowers, patriotic, etc. They can use them to decorate their stuff, or to put on letters home, or even to send to kids that write  to them.