Packing Party for the Troops

Every year, Joshua's Cub Scout troop has a "packing party" for military personnel stationed overseas. Whenever I hear about our American soldiers on the news, I get tears in my eyes. This comes from having 3 generations of my family in the Army. I had friends in high school whose parents, older siblings, etc. went off to war, and some didn't come back home. So anything for the troops... I'm there.

Joshua and I went out last Saturday to get donations of travel sized toiletries and condiments from local businesses. The Cub Scouts pack these up in quart sized zip top bags to send to our awesome men and women in uniform. It took us all morning, and it was more work than Joshua expected (who knew soliciting donations was such hard work!), but we were blessed with generosity. Here's what we got:

2 bags full of travel-sized soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, shower caps, and combs from Shauni at Hampton Inn.

1 box of assorted toiletries from Manda at Camelot Inn and Suites.

And...1 bag full of ketchup packets, 1 bag of picante sauce packets, and 2 bags of Happy Meal toys from Noel at the McDonald's just down the street. Sweet!

Anyone who knows Joshua really well knows it's hard for him to talk to adults, especially people he doesn't even know. But we practiced before we left the house, and Joshua was great...I had to remind him to make eye contact and say, "thank you," even if he was told, "no." I was so proud of him.

(In case you're wondering, American soldiers hand the Happy Meal toys out to the Iraqi children. What an awesome thing to do :-)

So last night at the pack meeting, the boys packaged everything up. Here's some pics of all the items, ready to be bagged, and Joshua hard at work.

Another part of this pack meeting was coloring a picture and writing a short note to the soldiers on the back of the paper. Joshua made his letter, and Rebecca and Christina each made one too.

The boys finished up the night with some drinks and snacks. David stayed back a few more minutes to let the boys practice with the race car in preparation for Pushmobile on Saturday (which I'll explain more in a future post).

I was more than ready to come home and get everyone to bed. Wouldn't you know it? We're driving down our street, and I notice we have no electricity. Great! I manage to get everyone in bed by candle and flashlight, and right around 9PM, the power came back on. Whew...I have not-so-wonderful memories from Hurricane Ike dancing in my head.

It's past my bedtime now...good night!