On Veteran's Day, we went to our local program held by the American Legion. It was a very sweet tribute complete with a reading of the names of all of our local veterans of past wars and current men and women serving in the military from our area. There was a representative of a local Operation Minnesota Nice group that encouraged us to "adopt a soldier" and we were so excited to be able to do this! Last night, in the basement of the American Legion, we packed our very first box for our soldier and it was SO FUN! It was so wonderful to hear the letters and responses from soldiers and even one from a fallen soldier's mother who thanked the sponsor after she found cards and letters from that person in her son's belongings sent home from Afghanistan.
We went to Wal-mart and bought some cocoa and cookies for ten soldier's boxes. When we got to the packing, we just put one thing each in the 8-10 boxes on our table (there were 8 on our table last night and each of those people brought things to put in each box as well) and then used some of the extra stuff people had donated from a group table on the side to fill our box to bursting. We brought the box home, and since it's a Christmas themed box, we are going to wrap each little thing individually and include some info about our family and our gratitude for our soldier's service and sacrifice. It's SO SIMPLE and (literally) takes only a few dollars and MINUTES of your time. If you are one of my MN peeps, PLEASE consider doing this once a month for a soldier. Your kids will LOVE doing this and it feels so good to help in a small, but concrete way.
www.operationminnesotanice.com
(you can also do a one time, Christmas shipping!)
...or contact me if you're from around my town and I can get you in touch with our local group's leader.
