Goodbyes are never easy…

This is a very hard post to write. It’s been eight years since CFS was started back in 2006 when a group of friends mailed our first shipment to a Chaplain who was deployed. It started out as a small group of friends supporting a friends husband and turned into a very wonderful non-profit organization that I have had the wonderful experience of running for several years now.

Unfortunately life circumstances have gotten in the way and financially I am unable to carry this on any longer. I always promised myself I would only do it as long as I could afford it and the time has come for me to admit that day.

I have met some wonderful people during this journey, I hope those people will keep in touch. I thank all of you who have contributed whether it be once or over and over. I couldn’t have done this without each and every one of you.

Please do not send any more cards. I will be sending what I have now but no more mailings will be going out. If you are looking for someplace to send cards Operation Write Home is another organization you can look into.  Please be sure to follow their guidelines. 

Again,  I thank you all from the bottom of my heart and wish you all the very best.

Much Love,
Pam

Round 4 Shipped

Happy Spring Everyone!

Round 4 has shipped, 1745 cards. Thank you to all of you who sent cards as well as donations. There were a lot of thank you cards for the troops this time, I was able to get a good bunch in every box which was great! Thank you so much for that! The soldiers will love them!

I have to say I am still receiving a lot of cards that do not meet the card specs as well as a lot of cards that do not have envelopes. Please be sure to read the Card Specs over to the right ------------------------------------------->>>>>>    before you send your cards. Thank you!

Again, thank you all for your support! I appreciate you more than you know!

Pam

Lots of Updates!

I am sorry, it’s been awhile. Lots going on in my life at home that has been interfering with my free time so while have been sending out cards on time I have had very little time for much else so the updates and emails have had to be put on the back burner. For this I apologize.   Please know that my appreciation for all of you has not been lacking one bit!

1680 Easter cards have been mailed!  Thank you all for your hard work, dedication and postage donations!

1740 Cards were shipped for Round 2.  Again, Thank You all for your hard work, dedication and postage donations!

2935 Cards were shipped for Round 1. And  a very late Thank You all for your hard work, dedication and postage donations!

So yes, I am very behind, I am going to spend some time trying to play catch up on emails today but I will not get to them all. Please know I am working on it. I’ve got a lot going on right now and you have not been forgotten and are not unappreciated. Sometimes life dishes out more than you can take but I’m taking it in stride and pushing through it.  I appreciate all of your continued support.

Pam

Please Do Not Send Store Bought Christmas Cards

I have been receiving store bought cards made out to the soldiers to send for Christmas. Please do not send these to me, as they will not be forwarded on to the troops. I am sorry but I do not mail these types of cards. I am a one-person operation and funding this on my own, I have done all my mailings for this year and cannot afford to send out of spec cards.  I apologize.

Last Post of 2013!

Our final mailing has been sent 6,781 holiday cards were mailed to round out our 2013!  This gives us a total of 30,272 cards mailed to the troops this year! Impressive numbers don’t you think? You all should be very proud of yourselves! And I will let you in on a little secret, I didn’t mail all the cards I received. I probably have a good several thousand birthday and general cards in my closet that still need to be sent. Because of time constraints and my hospital stay I was a bit behind with mailings halfway through the year so I had to put out what I could and hold back some.

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support. I feel like a broken record. I don’t know what else to say but thank you so so much! I appreciate you all for your dedication to my program. The soldiers appreciate you as well! Thank you for your donations towards postage and envelope purchases. Thank you for everything!

The 2014 schedule has been posted! See you all in the New Year! Have safe and wonderful holidays!

Pam

Round 7 & 8 Updates

The Hurrier I Go, the Behinder I Get!

This seems to be me lately, I can’t seem to catch up no matter what I do!  I am very far behind in my postings and in my emails so if you haven’t heard from me that does not mean I did not get your cards! I am sure I did, thank you very much!  You will get an email from me eventually I promise! I really am trying to catch up! I went and added another job to my list of things to do on top of my full time job and my CFS job (yes I know I’m crazy but I have a son that is graduating this year) so I’m a little over stretched right now!  But if anyone is wanting a beautiful Origami Owl locket I know where you can get one!  

OK on with the important stuff…2260 Halloween/Thanksgiving cards were mailed last month! Thank you all very much!

1620 Veteran’s Day cards were mailed out last week! Thank you all who sent in a thank you card to our soldiers!

The Christmas cards are already pouring in! I think it’s going to be a great holiday season!

Thank you to all who have donated postage funds, I have a few checks that have not been deposited, that’s because they were sitting with your notes that I’ve not gotten to, I am going to the bank tomorrow. I apologize!

Thank you all for your ongoing support, I so appreciate you!

Pam

Quick Mid Posting!

Just wanted to share a photo I got of some youngsters doing community service. It always warms my heart to hear that when asked to do service my project gets chosen. These girls from Reed Point Family, Career & Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) made 100 Halloween and Thanksgiving cards and are on to making Veteran’s day cards. If you look at their cards they did a fabulous job. I’ve blurred their faces because I did not have permission to post their photos but they are just beautiful inside and out let me tell you! 

Thank you ladies! Fantastic work you’ve done!

Pam

August Update Very Late!

I am very behind with everything. Due to being in the hospital I have to go to many doctor appointments and work has been especially busy which just leaves me no time for anything and that is why my website has been neglected, something had to take the backseat and since I had to mail the cards the site was it!

So as I mentioned, I was in the hospital for a few days in June, then on vacation in July, then I had so many cards I had to recruit help when the August mailing came in because although I have no cards scheduled to come in during the June/July months they kept right on coming so I couldn’t do it myself! I called up my good friends Denise and Pam who recruited the Women’s Connection at the First Congregational Church in Manchester, NH to help me out. After church one day we all got together and sorted over 4000 cards! The number is not accurate because with all the help I had (over 15 of us) I couldn’t get the counts exactly because the stacks of cards came faster than I could count and put them in the boxes! Here are some photos from that day…

Thank you so much to Denise and Pam, all the ladies of the Women’s Connection and to everyone who donated cards, envelopes and postage, as I could not have gotten through my August mailing without you all!
Until September, oh wait, it is September! See you soon!
Pam

Remembering…

Most people think of Memorial Day as the official kick off to summer but Memorial Day originally started as Decoration Day just after the Civil War. It is meant to honor those military members who died. In more than 200 years, more than 1.3 million Americans lost their lives in battle. The holiday is different from Veterans Day — the 11th day of the 11th month — which is meant to honor all of those people who have served.

Please take a moment to honor those who gave up their lives to give us our freedom.

Round 5 Shipped!

We are past the halfway mark and it’s been an incredible journey with you all again this year! 2237 cards went out this round!  Thank you all for taking part and sending cards and donations. I know there are so many organizations out there where you can donation as well as other things you can be doing with your time so your dedication to my organization means so much! 

The next round is not due until August 2 as I know many people are very busy during these summer months with vacations and such. I hope you all have a wonderful summer and while this website may be a bit quiet know that you can send me an email at anytime and I’ll answer as soon as I can.

Thank you all so so much for everything! Talk to you soon!
Pam

A Heartwarming Story

A few months ago, back in September, I went to a card class in the Church of two of my friends. One of the ladies in that class just so happened to be a teacher at my son’s middle school. She is also the teacher that helps run the Student Council. She went back and told her counterpart about CFS and they decided they wanted to get the kids involved in a fundraising event for CFS. The student council came up with “Pajama’s for Postage” where each kid had to pay $1.00 to wear their pajama’s to school one day. They did this twice and yesterday I went to a presentation at the Litchfield Middle School so they could present me with this…

Yes, those kids raised $500 in postage money! I was amazed and also touched. I also explained to them that their check will help send 38 boxes which is approximately 11,000 cards to the troops, you should have heard them cheer!

Thank you Ms. Irving, Ms. Sidilau, and LMS Students from the bottom of my heart and more! I am honored to say I live in a town with such great people!

Pam

Round 4 Update

Hello everyone!  Sorry it’s taken me so long to update with the Round 4 numbers, I was slacking off visiting my best friend in San Diego for a week so I got a bit behind!  I got the cards out right before I left, all 3629 of them! There were lots of thank you cards for the soldiers for the Armed Forces Day portion which made me smile from ear to ear! Thank you all to helped make this another successful mailing!

Thank you to those of you who sent in postage donations, I am so grateful!

I can’t believe it’s almost time for the next mailing again, just 3 more weeks until the May 10th deadline, where does the time go! And Father’s Day already? Yikes!

Again, thank you all for your support, I appreciate it and couldn’t do it without you!

Pam

Round 3 Shipped!

And what a shipment it was!  4176 cards! That is a huge amount for this round I have to say! Thank you all very much!  I know it was a double whammy for you all and I appreciate the support!

I thank you all for the postage donations as well! This has been very helpful to me as it’s getting pretty costly with the postage rates going up. It’s now $13.30 per box I send.  Sending 10 boxes per month and this month having sent out two shipments is killer, just know I so appreciate your donations!

I was asked to post more on the site regarding what I do with the cards regarding sorting and such so I thought I would give you all some information if you are interested, if not, you can stop reading now…

As the cards come in throughout the month they get brought down to my craft room and put in a pile. I don’t open any of the boxes until the mailing deadline. Then on the weekend before the deadline I start opening and sorting them. First thing I do is sort them into piles 1) birthday, 2) general (thinking of you, miss you, etc.) 3) holiday the round is for.  Next I make sure they fit the card specs, no glitter, are blank inside, dark cards are lined, etc. if not they go into a need fixing pile or a donate pile. Cards that can’t be fixed are donated to a veteran’s hospital. After all the cards are sorted I make sure they all have envelopes and I start counting them into batches of 50 and put elastics and a tag with each one marking what group they are. I then get my total count, I box them up and ship them out.  After that I send out all my thank you notes and post here on the website with updates.

If I can provide you any more information please feel free to ask me in an email or in the comments here on the blog, I’m more than happy to answer any questions you all have!

Thanks for reading!

Pam

 

Round 2 Has Shipped!

Good Morning All!

While I am settled in and waiting for the Nor’easter NEMO to whack us with 2 feet of snow I figured it was a great time to get caught up with my update! There were 2237 cards sent out this month! In the past we have not had much in the way of St. Patty’s Day cards but this time around there quite a bit which was great! The Easter cards are coming in fast behind them which is great since the deadline is next week! I know those deadlines two weeks apart and I apologize for that believe me my wallet doesn’t like it either but I had to space them out a bit so that I didn’t have so many boxes to send at once. Work is so busy right now that sorting 2000 cards is hard I couldn’t handle double that in a weekend.

Thank you to everyone for your  continued contributions both with cards/envelopes and donations. And for getting us off to a great start in 2013! It’s looking to be a great mailing year!

I need to mention a few things again, it’s definitely getting better so some of you are reading the specs!

1. The dark cards are still coming in unlined. 
2. I’m getting a lot of cards without envelopes. Please send envelopes, I am not getting envelopes donated at all anymore. I’ve been turned down by every company I’ve written. I can’t afford to pay for postage and buy envelopes any longer.
3. I do not send store bought cards, if you send those to me I will not send them in my packages, please do not send them. 
4. Please do not send stamps, I cannot use them and neither can the soldiers, they get free postage.

Thank you all for helping to keep my program running smoothly!

I hope everyone in NEMO’s path stays save and warm!

Pam

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and has a very happy 2013!

We had a very successful mailing for our first of the year with 3332 cards being sent! What a great way to start of the season! We even had a group of cards come from The Fifth Avenue Active Retirement Center in Washington where some of the residents who are in their 90’s and one of them being 103 contribute to this mailing. I want to say that I hope I make it that long in life and am still making cards! How great is that!

Thank you to everyone, those of you who have been continued contributors over the years and to those of you that are sending cards for the first time, I so appreciate your support! Thank you too for the postage donations which were a huge help since 11 boxes were sent this month!

I hope you all are staying warm if you are in a cold climate and enjoying the warmth if you are somewhere warm. It’s been very cold here in New Hampshire and I am wishing I was somewhere much warmer these days! I will talk to you all again next month! Thank you again for your support!

Pam

Sharing Some Happy Mail

One of our faithful cardmakers tends to put her address labels on the backs of her cards. By doing this she gets a lot of nice notes from soldiers and always likes to share them with me. I love the see these and thought all of you would too. Here are a few recent ones she has received. One was a group thank you card and another came from a Colonel. I’ll share a photo of the cards they used as well…

December Mailing and 2012 Year Total

Our Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year cards totaled out to 7,102 cards! I shipped 19 boxes out to the troops and I am sure the postal worker was not too crazy about the pick up on my front porch this month but I sure was pleased! Thank you to all who contributed with your card donations as well as with your postage donations.

I did receive a lot of cards this month that were on black or very dark cardstock. I unfortunately did not have time to add white cardstock to the insides of these so those had to go into my ‘to be fixed’ pile for later. Please remember to line your dark cards with white paper because the soldiers don’t have access to white pens like we do!

Our 2012 yearly total of cards came to 23,400 cards. The number was a bit lower than last year but still very impressive don’t you think? If you are curious what the numbers have been through the years you can scroll through the ‘Past Posts’ down in the bottom left hand column. There are all sorts of fun things to read there, especially if you are new to CFS!

So thank you all for another successful year, thank you to those of you who have continually donated cards throughout the years as well as to those of you that are just starting to donate! I hope you all have wonderful holidays!

Pam

2013 Mailing Schedule is Posted!

I've changed things up a bit, there will be no mailing in June/July since the summer months tend to be very slow with holidays and card making. Normally we only have one general card mailing in June but I am going to see how this works.

I'll update the Christmas card totals in a few days!

Veteran’s Day Mailing

I apologize for this late posting. I wrote this post last month but it must have gotten lost because when I came back post the 2013 mailing schedule it was not here! We were able to send over 2000 Veteran’s Day cards this mailing. That is our biggest mailing yet for the personalized cards to the soldiers! Thank you all so much for taking the time to thank our soldiers! I want to share a photo of one of the groups we have been sending cards to. I personally know one of the men in this photo, I worked with him on the base where I work before he was deployed. He and his group are in Afghanistan doing great things and your cards are a wonderful show of support to them.

Thank you all for the donations for postage and for including envelopes with your cards. Your continued support to my organization is very much appreciated. Without you I can’t continue to do this!

Pam

September Update and a Card Making Session!

Happy First Day of Fall!

We had a big mailing this month, 3781 cards! Thank you to all those who sent in cards. A lot of Halloween and Thanksgiving cards but also a bunch of those much needed Birthday cards came in so thanks so much for hearing my request! Keep them coming as we always need those! Thank you to all for your postage donations again, you all are so generous! I know I say it over and over but without you all I can’t do this so thank you all for your continued support of cards and donations!

Now don’t forget, Veteran’s Day is the next mailing, please take time to make some cards to thank the soldiers. These are NOT blank inside. You write a thank you note to the soldier in it. They do not need an envelope. I need a LOT of them, one to hand personally to each soldier and I send to 10 different troops right now. Most of them with over 100 men/women in them, one of them has 1000 in the group. Please help with this, they deserve a note of thanks!  Those cards are due to me on October 8th please.

On September 15th I joined the ladies of the First Congregational Church in Manchester, NH for a Card Making Day. They made 10 cards for $10. The cards were all designed by friends of mine, Denise and Pam who are members of the church. They asked me to come and tell the ladies about CFS and then they requested at the end of the card making session that they donate at least two of their cards to CFS. Well with 15 ladies there I expected to go home with 30 cards to add to my boxes. Imagine my surprise when I got a box of cards from a lady that wasn’t even there full of wonderful cards that she sent to Denise to give to me, and an even bigger surprise when a few more of the ladies then handed over all 10 of their cards to me when they were done! It was very heartwarming. Here are some photos of these wonderful ladies making their cards (I am in the last photo in the white shirt, which is my CFS shirt by the way!)…

Card Making Day VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Thanks so much to Denise and Pam for inviting me to talk about CFS and to all the new friends I met at First Congregational Church for your generosity!

I know most of you have been sending cards for a long time and know that there has always been a no envelope requirement unless your card size is larger than A2 size. Unfortunately I need to change this requirement due to the fact that envelope donations are not coming in anymore and I just can’t afford to be spending more money on envelope costs as well as postage to ship the cards. Boxes of cards cost me at least $125 a month, sometimes double that. I just had to purchase 1000 envelopes as well which was also a large chunk of change because I ran out during a mailing and had to run to staples vs. ordering on line, another $120. Not pretty. I now have to ask that envelopes be included with your cards. I understand that it will increase your costs and that you may have to send less cards but I am hoping that I can start getting some corporate donations and that this will only be a temporary thing. So please bear with me! A lot of you already send envelopes, and I thank you so much for this!

See you all in the next post! Thank you again for your support!
Pam