Care Package Ideas For:
The Spouse
The Children
The Family
The Friends
Common Items Requested By Soldiers
For The Spouse Send your soldier some laminated pictures of yourself or anything from home that they will want to keep close with them. This way they can keep the pictures in their uniform with them and take you with them where ever they go on their deployment! Before your soldier leaves, write a few short love notes or inspiring quotes on a small piece of paper. Then take the different notes and hide them in various pockets on their uniform, in their packed gear or in random pockets on their back packs. This way as they use their gear and uniforms they will stumble upon the notes one by one. After they find the first one they will be excited to look for more! Keep a notebook by your bed a night with a pen for when you get those early morning phone calls. This way you will be able to write down anything you need to remember! For example, when your soldier asks for a new set of socks, you'll be sure they make it into the very next care package you send out. In this notebook, also write down each care package you send out, along with the date you sent it and your soldier received it. Write down all of the contents so you know that every items was received. By the time your soldier is home this notebook will become a keep sake of their deployment! Create a fun calendar for your soldier. Your soldier will have 12 new photos of home, plus you can mark important dates on the calendar so your soldier will still be apart of the events and know whats going on back home! Have your soldiers friends and family write a collection of letters. Then you can collect the letters and bind them together into a notebook so your soldier has a whole book of letters from their friends and family from home. They will be so happy to hear from everyone and even more happy to know that everything is thinking of them while they are away serving their country. Always send your love letters with some extra love and a reminder of you. Spray the letter and envelope with a favorite perfume or cologne. If you use a specific air freshener in your home, send a bottle of it to your soldier so that they can spray it in their tent so it will always smell like home!
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For The Children Have your children keep a special deployment box while their mom or dad is deployed. Have the children decorate this box however they would like. Then each time the child receives something or makes something that they want to share with their mom or dad they can put it in the box and keep it safe until they come home. (For example, tests, report cards, art projects, special awards) Make a deployment chain! Instead of making a chain where you rip a piece off each day (because we all know deployments can get extended) have the child write down something special that happened each day their parent was away. The great part is this also doubles as a journal and welcome home decoration! A lot of times when communication is limited, the family only worries about the big issues that need to be taken care of, with the chain, all the fun things can be remembered and enjoyed when your soldier returns! Have your spouse use their AKO account to send video messages instead of a regular typed email. If you have a web cam, kids can record a video telling their parent all about their day and all the exciting things that are going on in their lives and then send it to them via email. This helps if you’re not always able to talk through a web cam. Have your children create crossword puzzles or word searches to send to their parent over seas. Not only will it keep the kids busy by creating something for their mom or dad but it will also entertain your soldier once they get the package!
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| For The Family Company Sponsorship - Submitted by mom2chinco on our forum Internet access for our soldiers can become costly when deployed overseas. To help your soldier out, get family members to sponsor a month of internet access for your soldier! By doing this you take some of the financial stress of your soldier and enable them to have much more access to communicate with loved ones at home. Whenever there is a family gathering, set up a video camera so that video messages can be recorded and sent to your soldier. If you don't have a video camera, get a card that can be passed around to everyone. This way everyone will be able to write their own message and sign the card. Sometimes scheduling a video chat can be hard, but if its possible to plan ahead, its always a great idea to coordinate the video chat with a family gathering. Spouses usually know a soldiers schedule best so when you are looking to plan an event, check with the spouse for the best times to get everyone together! For fun, give your care package to your soldier a title. For example, Operation: and then whatever the theme is. A good one to do would be Operation: Entertain My Soldier. Or another example would be Operation: Warmth and send them items like extra gloves, long johns and hot hands and feet. It adds something extra personal to the package, in addition to any letters that may already be in there! Get a favorite family picture or a fun picture of your soldier's pets. Then have the picture made into a puzzle that your soldier can put together. This could also be something that your soldier could do with a picture of themselves and they can send it home to their family to put together. To save this puzzle as a keepsake, simply frame the puzzle in a picture frame and hang it on the wall.
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| For The Friends When you have parties and everyone wishes your buddy or BFF could be there, find someone who has a digital video camera. Assign one person to walk around and record messages for your soldier over seas. This way your soldier will know they were not forgotten and they will definitely know just how much they were missed at the gathering.
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Common Items Requested By Soldiers
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