the homefront blog

Holiday Mail for Heroes is The Red Cross’s website REPLACEMENT for the false email once again circulating; that email suggests that holiday cards be sent to a Walter Reed Hospital address. Please do NOT do that and if you receive the email, reply to all with a link to this post or the Red Cross website to direct them to the proper information. This program is NOT AFFILIATED with Cards for Heroes, however we’re doing our part to help get the correct information out there!

The Red Cross card restrictions are NOT the same as CFH’s; these cards are distributed to vets and families stateside, CFH’s go to deployed heroes; their card deadline is Dec 10, CFH’s AnyHero Christmas card deadline is Dec 1st.

This is a short version of the extensive information on their site, Holiday Mail for Heroes.

Holiday Mail for Heroes (Red Cross Program)

From the front lines to the home front, the American Red Cross provides service members, their families and veterans with the care and assistance they need.

The Red Cross is partnering with Pitney Bowes this holiday season for the Holiday Mail for Heroes campaign. For the second year in a row, they’re collecting holiday cards to distribute to American service members, veterans and their families in the United States and around the world. Pitney Bowes is generously donating technology, resources and postage to make this holiday card program possible.

The goal is to collect and distribute one million holiday cards to spread holiday cheer and facilitate thanks to these brave individuals and families.

Please send cards to this address, following the guidelines listed below:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
PO Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

You can also learn about other ways to participate and get the latest news on their site, Holiday Mail for Heroes.

Holiday Mail for Heroes Card Guidelines

Please follow these guidelines when mailing a card to ensure that your card will quickly reach service members, veterans and their families. Every card received will first be screened for hazardous materials by Pitney Bowes and then reviewed by Red Cross volunteers working in one of 16 sorting stations around the country.

* All cards must be postmarked no later than Wednesday, December 10, 2008. Cards sent after this date will be returned to sender.
* Please ensure that all cards are signed.
* Please send cards as opposed to long letters which delay a quick review process.
* Please do not include email or home addresses on the cards, as the program is NOT meant to foster pen pal relationships.
* Please do not include inserts of any kind, including photos, as these items will be removed during the reviewing process.
* Participants should limit the number of cards they submit to 25 from any one person or 50 from any one class or group.
* All cards received may be used in program publicity efforts, including appearing in broadcast, print or online mediums.
* No ‘Care Packages’ or care package items will be accepted at this address.

Please feel free to share a link to this post with your email lists—the sooner we get the correct information out there, the sooner that old incorrect email will pass away into Snopes history! We will place a link to this post at the top of all of our CFH posts throughout the holiday season, so you’ll have it for quick reference at the top of whatever post is up at that moment. Thank you!

First, we need to CELEBRATE!

The number of cards entered in our Blizzard of Cards challenge: 7,314!!
The number of cardmakers sending in those cards: 164
The number of total cards sent in during the challenge: 19,052!!!!!

That is one seriously amazing number of cards, and we have been blown away by these totals…you have all kept our shippers incredibly busy! And with all these cards, we went through the donation of 10,000 envelopes! Many thanks to those who sent envelopes with their cards, thus stretching the donation that much longer.

These thousands of cards pictured are waiting to be shipped…read on to see how you can help ship them out to our heroes!

And now…we need your assistance!

NEED #1: ENVELOPES

Our shippers are either out of or very low on A2 envelopes. We need you to return to sending in your cards with envelopes, pretty please! And we’re also trying to work out getting envelopes to cover those cards we have without envelopes now…

If you’d like to help out, you can:

1. paypal a donation for envelopes so we can purchase those needed;
2. send in a package of envelopes (contact info@cardsforheroes.org so we can coordinate which shipper is in greatest need when you’re ready to mail them);
3. if you have a connection with a company or manufacturer who would like to help out our heroes with envelopes, we’d love to receive that blessing! Contact them, or share the contact’s information with us at info@cardsforheroes.org and we’ll contact them.

NOTE: This refers to A2 sized envelopes - the ones for 4.25 x 5.5 inch cards. I believe all shippers still have A7s (5x7s).

NEED #2: SHIPPING FUNDS
With the incredible donations of this many cards comes the need to pay for shipping the cards to the battlefield; we need to get the cards mailed in the next 10 days for them to make it over there and back in time for Christmas. A box costs us $10.95…Can you help?

1. Paypal funds to donate@cardsforheroes.org (Note: Paypal does deduct a very small fee from your donation.)
2. Mail a check with your cards or separately. If you make your check out to Cards for Heroes, it’s fastest for it to go to Sandy in WA, since our account is there; funds are shared with shippers from there. OR,
3. If you want to help by getting funds to a shipper immediately, you may make a check out to them (checks or cash donated this way still gets credited as a CFH donation!)
4. Invite your friends, neighbors, and family to help out with a few dollars!
5. Consider giving a donation to CFH as a holiday gift in the name of your loved ones! We’ll send you a gift card you can wrap up, telling them what the donation has gone toward.

We are SO grateful to all who have been donating cards so generously, and to those who have also been including donations–even a dollar or two—with your cards! Every card and every dollar means so much…bless you all!

Our CFH deadlines:

1. Christmas cards must be received by Nov 14th so we can get them packed up and out in time for them to be written on and sent back home by Christmas.
2. If you expect to be close to or past that date, or if you’re having a cardmaking party later on, you CAN make “wintery” cards that we can still send out to be used in January/February if they don’t arrive in time for Christmas. (Snow, winter wishes, warm thoughts, that kind of thing.) Any of the definitively Christmas ones that come to us too late will be stored for next year.
3. Christmas AnyHero cards can still be sent to us until Dec 1st. You can send just one if you like! PLEASE CONTACT THE SHIPPER FIRST so you can find out if there are more boxes going out from that shipper in time for Christmas; we’ll be slowing down shipping while we prepare for our own holiday celebrations with our families.
4. Valentine cards must be received by our shippers by January 9th. Generic “love you” type cards after that can still be sent to make it in time, so if you’re getting close to that date, you might consider “love” and not “valentine” cards.

For those who mail letters and packages to military contacts that need to be there for Christmas, but not in order to be mailed back (like CFH cards), here is the mailing deadline schedule from the PO:

For military mail addressed to APO/FPO AE zips 090-098 (except 093); AA zips 340; and AP zips 962-966:

1. Express Mail: Dec. 18
2. First-Class Mail (letters/cards and priority mail): Dec. 11
3. Parcel Airlift Mail: Dec. 4
4. Parcel Post: Nov. 13

For military mail addressed to APO/FPO AE ZIP 093:

1. Express mail Military Service: N/A
2. First-Class Letters/Cards/Priority Mail: Dec. 4
3. Parcel Airlift Mail: Dec. 1
4. Space Available Mail: Nov. 21
5. Parcel Post: Nov. 13

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas as we deck the halls of Cards for Heroes!

Quick details:
Challenge deadline: Oct 31
Send cards to: any shipper! (click here for addresses)
Type of cards: Holiday and winter - all kinds! No envelopes needed!
Special need: sponsors for shipments of cards! ($10)
Click here for a link to the full challenge post

And now, for a reveal of some more of the 10 prizes:

One upcoming prize will be for kids—so get the little ones involved!
And we’ll have a grand prize for those sending in 100+ cards!

If you just love to write letters to our heroes, have we got an opportunity for you!

AnySoldier.com (where we get most of our hero addresses) has a great forum filled with all sorts of discussions - what/who/how to send care packages, etc. And they also have some organized cardswaps: these are for swapping signed cards, so all the participants can send messages of support from across the nation inside their care packages!

The goal for their Christmas swap is 50 participants…each member writing 50 cards or letters, mailing them to the coordinator, and receiving 50 different ones back! Fifty is a lot of cards to some, but to a few of you, it’s a lightweight request. (You know who you are!)

What to do:
1. Register on the AnySoldier Forum. (You can go view it without registering, just can’t post until you register.)
2. Sign up on the swap thread here.
3. Follow the instructions listed on that thread. Lots of great ideas there!
4. If you want to send out a package yourself this Christmas, you can, or you can ask the organizer to send it to one of our shippers instead (please provide their address obviously inside your package).