Of all the exciting ideas our Agency considered to celebrate this Thanksgiving season, I thought one especially merited sharing with you.

Nichole, daughter of colleague Randy Crow from Muskegon, Michigan, is serving in the Air Force in Afghanistan. She told her dad how much she loved getting all the “care” packages he sends her on a regular basis, and remarked that several of the soldiers in her company don’t get any mail from home. So Randy and his team have been “adopting” many of their daughter’s friends and sending packages to these “kids.”

After hearing Randy’s story, a number of friends immediately offered to help, and the ball was rolling. Randy had his daughter create a list of some of her friends that could really use some kind of communication from home, and we at Romanelli Communications have adopted Scott Mayes. 

Although we don’t know much about Scott yet, we have plans to change that. The US postal service sells prepaid boxes for shipping; whatever you can fit in them costs one price to ship. They honor that for any shipment to soldiers serving overseas. So we pulled together some items to send to Scott. We hope we can make his tour feel a bit warmer and less remote, and use this as a tangible way to thank him for his service to our country.

This is such an easy way to make a big difference in the lives of people who are living in harm’s way, and was a no-brainer for us. It’s a tradition we plan to keep year ’round. We hope it inspires you as well, during these holidays that are more about giving than receiving. Feel free to contact me by email, and adopt a young service man or woman of your own. It may be the most rewarding thing you do this holiday.

Suggested items to include in care packages: magazines, energy bars, candy, CDs, DVDs of TV shows, (something funny), mints, gum, Crystal Light (or something else they can mix in their water bottles), chocolate bars, small Pringle chips like you get on planes, a phone card to call home, etc. As long as it’s not liquid or in a spray can, it should be fine to send.