Part 1, The Beginning
How can I help? That’s the question we get more often than any other. So many people would like to support a deployed military service member with a box of goodies from home, but they just don’t know how.
That’s where SHFM and the SHFM Foundation come in. We’ve had a very close relationship with the military for many years, and as representatives of our organization travel with NCOs and officers conducting base evaluations in multiple branches: Air Force, Marines, and Army. We realize and appreciate the level of sacrifice these service members make while away from their families in defense of our freedoms. We’ve made countless, deep personal relationships with many service members, and this is the key to our outreach. These relationships have led us to a continuous flow of names and addresses of deployed soldiers, marines, and airmen. The names and places are constantly changing based on geopolitical and defense needs.
SHFM and the SHFM Foundation have constructed a team of passionate and patriotic members who can assist with instructions on the “how to do it,” the “where to send it,” and the “to whom to send it”.
Our instructions include suggested items to send, along with a personal note of thanks, mailing instructions, and a little about the location where the care package is going. We call these care packages “Boxes of Home” and if you were to ask any service member who’s ever been deployed, they’ll tell you it’s quite the motivator and uplift to know that someone back home is thinking of them. It also happens that many of our service members do not have the support mechanism back home. We help with that.