Solvang volunteers send care boxes to deployed troops

A small army of volunteers gathered in Solvang to show their support and appreciation for the men and women currently serving the U.S. Armed Forces and are deployed overseas.

Volunteers packed donated items in boxes at the historic Bethania Lutheran Church Parish Hall in Solvang Wednesday morning for shipment to U.S. military service members currently deployed overseas.

“We hope to keep those that are in the forward operating bases or combat outposts, those are the ones we are reaching out to”, said organizer Pat Sullivan who has been running the annual Solvang troop care package shipment for 14 years, “the soldiers, so many of them are away from home for the first time, they need to know that people think of them.”

The sound of packing tape wrapping around boxes filled the Parish Hall at Solvang’s historic Bethania Lutheran Church Wednesday morning.

Volunteers, working in military-like fashoin, prepared hundreds of care packages to be sent to U.S. troops deployed overseas.

Donated items in the care packages included new clothing, personal hygiene items, jerky and other dried foods, snacks, candy canes, magazines, books, Christmas decorations and other reminders of home.

“Our job, or one of things that we care most about, is supporting the troops and their families and bring a little bit of home to them at this time”, said one of the many volunteers at the care package event.

“This isn’t going to people on bases, this is going to people that are out in the boonies”, said volunteer Hank Homburg, “so all the more important it gets to them I think.”

Every detail of the organized event is accounted for including the personal notes written by volunteers to the troops that went inside the care packages.

An impressive showing of support from one community for those serving in harm’s way, many of whom will not be home with loved ones over the holiday season.

“The world is bad enough even with our best efforts so we appreciate anything our good ole troops can do for us overseas”, said volunteer Cindy Long, “especially because there’s always the pull of the heart for home and they’re not home and we are so the least we can do is support them.”

For more information on the annual troop deployment care package event, or how to donate, visit www.we-support-the-troops.org.