The Cards and Care Packages for Troops project led by Sherry Nutt of Sawyer moved ahead this weekend, as volunteers at the West Branch Community Center put together about 55 packages and 3,800 cards, Nutt said. But there’s more to do.
“We have about 15,000 cards left to go,” Nutt said. The deadline for cards is Dec. 1, so that hopefully they’ll be to their destinations in time for the holidays.
Many of the cards are addressed simply “To a true hero,” or “To a great soldier.” Nutt then packs them into boxes along with care package goodies and sends them to a service member for whom she has an address. It’s no longer legal to send mail to troops overseas that is not addressed to a specific person. Then the soldier distributes the letters and items to others in the same unit or location.
Nutt’s biggest need now, she said, is for financial donations to cover postage of the packages. Sending a box can cost anywhere from $8 to $36.
“I’ll have four times more than we had here today,” she said. “It’s pretty overwhelming when you see what people donate.”
Saturday, about 70 people brought care package items, cards, boxes and money for postage to the community center.
Joe and Sherri Krause traveled from Manistique to sign cards, bringing care package donations with them.
“You just think of these kids over there,” Sherri Krause said. “It’s the least I can do, considering what they’re doing.”
Every bit is appreciated, said Kim Emard of Sawyer, who was instructing new volunteers as they came in.
“People don’t even realize all the little things that are needed,” Emard said. She added the effort goes on all year, and Saturday was just one day.
“It’s important that poeple know it doesn’t just end because of the holidays,” she said.
Other volunteers came from Delta County, where Nutt started her project in 1991. Tammy Klotz of Gladstone said she’s known Nutt for years, and helps year-round collecting cards and donations, and clipping coupons for useful care package items.
“I take cards wherever I go. I sign them at the stock car races, at the doctor’s office,” Klotz said.
Nutt said other people across the country also were signing cards this weekend as part of her project. She met many of them after First, a women’s magazine, featured her efforts in a 2005 article.
And she hasn’t stopped with cards and packages, either. Recently, she began collecting used cell phones and accessories, and phone cards, as part of another volunteer effort to provide phones and Webcams to soldiers overseas to keep in contact with their families.
Klotz said that’s typical for Nutt.
“She just keeps adding things to what she does,” Klotz said. “You just can’t help but help her because what she does is such a good thing.”
Nutt added while the effort began in Rapid River, and financial donations are handled by the American Legion post there, she’s finding her new community at Sawyer is just as willing to help.
“I have tons of support here at the W,” she said, adding much of her efforts now are taking place at the center since she no longer has space at her house for all the cards and packages. “There’s a lot of good people in the U.P.”
If the replies from some service members are any indication, they think so too.
“...Remembering there are people such as you in our country makes everything we do resonate with a sense of meaning and purpose,” wrote one soldier after receiving a card from Nutt. She’s had replies from everyone from privates up to three-star generals, she said.
“From the very bottom of our hearts, thank you very much... We didn’t think anyone remembered the soldiers,” another wrote.
A military policeman in Afghanistan also sent a reply.
“I hope you can imagine how something so simple can mean so much,” he wrote.
