| SANTA ANA, Calif., Nov. 17, 2006 -- Just in time for the holidays, Operation Homefront has launched “eCarePackage,” an online service that allows caring citizens to send care packages to deployed troops and their families.
Operation Homefront is part of CinCHouse.com, a community for military wives, and is a team member of America Supports You, a Department of Defense program connecting U.S. citizens with members of the military.
Servicemembers and families can register on www.ecarepackage.org, which protects their identity and location, and visitors can “adopt” them based on common interests. Then visitors select individual items to create a customized care package for their chosen servicemember or family and include a personal message.
Operation Homefront’s team of volunteers takes the order, boxes the selected items and ships them directly to the servicemember or family – always protecting their identity and physical location.
“There’s nothing like a care package to cheer a deployed soldier or a lonely military family, especially during the holidays,” said Amy Palmer, executive vice president of operations for Operation Homefront. “With operational security for the troops so tight, we were concerned that care packages weren’t getting through. So we built eCarePackage to ensure our troops and families continue to ‘feel the love’ from Americans.”
Items available in the eCarePackage store range from toiletries and necessities to games, books and candy. Most items were donated from sponsors, particularly The Dollar Tree, which runs its Operation Appreciation program in most stores nationwide.
Donated items are not marked up, so eCarePackage visitors often pay only the cost of handling and shipping – making eCarePackage less expensive than doing it yourself. Moreover, Operation Homefront has partnered with DHL, which provides postal service to overseas troops, to ensure direct and timely delivery of all care packages to deployed troops.
The eCarePackage program is an extension of Operation Homefront’s mission to provide emergency support and morale to our troops, the families they leave behind during deployments, and wounded warriors when they return home. Operation Homefront recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Defense Department to ensure greater collaboration.
(From a CinCHouse.com news release.)
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