Supporting Our Troops

At a recent Scouting event one of the busiest stations around was putting together care packages for our soldiers who are the real heroes of this generation. This station was one of the required service activities toward earning a patch for the day and putting together just one package was the only requirement. The true pride of this station was watching kids and adults go through the line, over and over again in a non-ending "tour of duty".

As seen in the picture to the left each pass through the line began with writing a thoughtful letter of gratitude and appreciation to a soldier at random. The letter was then placed in your box then, as seen in the picture above, you would work yourself down the line and place the allotted number of items into your box. It was then sealed and packed away for shipping to Iraq or  Afghanistan. This was a great service project where we had an opportunity to express appreciation for something bigger than ourselves AND something other than ourselves.

This activity reminded me of another project started by two 12 year old siblings from Massachusetts several years ago to provide Cell Phones for Soldiers. I've been following Robbie and Brittany who are young adults now as they have inspired the donation of almost $2 million  and distributed more than 500,000 prepaid calling cards to soldiers serving overseas. They started the project with just $21 of their own money then nurtured their plan into something huge.

Everyday I find more reasons to be inspired about the next generation.