They're outta here!!!

Wow!  Today (Monday, Feb 26th) the team gathered, joined by McChord AFB firefighters, Fort Lewis' 24th Quartermasters, Pino, and Aaron & JJ, at the Lakewood post office.

Our U-Haul trailer was filled to the brim with the Lincoln Moving & Storage boxes (It took 2 trailers to get the shirts and the packout items to the armory) ... and more filled the back of Larry's truck.  We hadn't counted them as they were packed, but were all taking guesses at how many we had.  There were several single boxes, and our largest group had over 45 boxes.

The boxes had all sorts of items donated, not just shirts.  There were t-shirts of course, but there were also polos, hats, pants, sweats, shorts, tanks, patches, certificates, letters, messages, and more. 

As the troops unloaded the boxes, Chani, Leta, and the rest of the 24th QM's worked inside to assure the customs forms were correct and attached properly.  It was a great team and it flowed very smoothly.  There was much laughter, even the customers in the post office got into the mood of things.  They were adding donations to help us cover the postage, and getting rounds of applause from the troops (& JJ).  We got to speak to a lot of veterans, family members, and troops as well, who spoke appreciatively of how important efforts such as ours are to a troops' morale.  **People occasionally question us about how much salary we receive ... We do not receive payment in monetary denominations, but in the smiles and thanks that happen at the most unexpected times.

So the final step of the PackOut began at 1pm, and did not end til around 5pm!  When all was said and done, post office customers had donated over $130, which we added to the $3400+ from the PackOut and Evening of Heroes.

So when the reallllllllly long receipt totaled out, we shipped 193 boxes for 7,000 troops, for a total cost of over $5,100!  Whew!

They should be there around the middle of March, and hopefully by the 19th.  After that, we hope to be able to share pix and words from the troops who receive them.  I know that is not the reason you give the shirts, but we are also aware that you all enjoy seeing the smiling face of a troop in your shirts.  So we have done what we can, now we wait.

We want to thank the troops who stepped up for us today, and gave most of their day to the final push.

Photos are en route!

lj

Tags: hero, heroes, shirts, packout, military, deployed troops, morale, positive, fire, police

WE DID IT!

**First off ... We want to welcome Jen West to our Tag Team!  She will be one of our photographers for local events, and we are happy to have her.  Jen is a professional photographer, an Army veteran ... and Gold Star Mother.  She and her son, Duane Longstreth, joined the Army together after 9/11.

Please enjoy her work ... We do!  All of the photos on this entry are courtesy of time and effort.  Thank you Jen, and welcome aboard! 

Packout Photos by "Jennifer L. West, 2007"

Thank you to everyone who answered the call for our troops!  This was the biggest request, and I won't kid you, I was afraid we wouldn't reach our goal ... but we DID!

7,000 shirts to our troops for this year ... Dannnnnnnng!

We took lots of pictures, but you need to bear with us, as we still have to ship several hundred boxes tomorrow.  We're still pretty exhausted from all the hard work, but we'll finish up, and get all the photos gathered and loaded for you.

There are so many people to thank, but one agency comes to mind right away ...

Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooo much to Bruce at Lincoln Moving and Storage, in Lakewood.  Talk about angels shining down on us.  Just a few days prior to the PackOut, we found out that our box contact for the past 2 years was no longer available.  You can only imagine that excitement!  Here we were with thousands of shirts waiting to go to their new owners in the desert, and we had nothing to put them in to get them there.  Sigh.

We made a few calls that got us nowhere, and were feeling more than worried.  Someone told us to go talk to the folks at Lincoln Moving and Storage, so I crossed my fingers and headed on over.  Meeting Bruce was a stroke of luck we couldn't have asked for.  He immediately jumped on it, and stepped up!  The day before the PackOut we picked up all the boxes we needed.  So a huge salute and thanks to our new friends.

We'll be back with more.  And we'll share all that happened ... And, we will reveal which units were adopted this year!

Stay tuned!  Also, if you have any photos from the event, please get them to us asap.  Especially if you have pictured of that phenomenal extrication done in tandem with the amzing Pileup in Puyallup team from the Puyallup Fire Department & the Godzilla crew of Fort Lewis.  So far, this is the area for which I can not locate photos.  Looks like eveyone was so involved in watching that no one thought to get pictures.  Please prove me wrong!

lj

Tags: hero, troop morale, hero shirts. military, camp murray, pack out, herotohero.us, fun, families, photos, annual,

Dang, how can it be so close?!

Single digits ... YIKES!  lol

That's the scary part.  The comforting part is that big boxes of shirts are showing up daily.  In fact, as the shirts arrive, finding places for them gets to be more fun.  The dining room is full, in fact, I have not seen the floor in there for months.

The kitchen has boxes of "swag" from our local recruiters and merchants, and community efforts.  (This is for the PackOut)  The living room is an assembly line of ill proportions.  Somewhere in all of this my poor dog is barking ... Hope she isn't boxed up!

We're still not certain that we will reach our goal, but I have given up worrying about that part.  We've never had to say no to a troop asking for a Hero shirt, but then we've never had a number this high ... and there are only a few of us at the core, making it happen.  I can tell you this team has done a lot of work this year to make this happen, and I am sooo proud of every member of our teams.

We have probably got close to 5,000 shirts here, or enroute.  Shirts always come in on the day of the PackOut, too ... Hand carried by firefighters and police.  *The graph represents shirts we have already stamped, and checked.

This year has been different.  Without a doubt, interest has grown.  We get more personal messages from the troops, and the hometown heroes are taking the time to really "get it" ... that is borne out when you see the huuuuge boxes showing up at our door!

Recently we have seen logos and postmarks from, Tillamook, Oregon - Fairfax, Virginia - Wrangell, Alaska - Bozeman, Montana - Cleveland, Ohio - Spokane, WA - Durham, Connecticut - Wheeling, West Virginia - Kansas City, Kansas - Shreveport, Louisiana - Berkeley, California - The Pentagon ... & more!

Some of these have added things in their boxes.  The shirts are getting creative too.  We have to get a shot of one of the Wheeling FD shirts, they added our name below their logo ... What an honor!  Thank you WFD!

We have seen Challenge Coins, blinking pins, and donations to help with the shipping -- Boy, do we appreciate that!!!

We keep hoping to kick up the idea of every year on September 11th, you remember & honor our Troops by donating a shirt off your back and a dollar.  If all of our firefighters and law enforcement did this, we could make sure that every troop asking for a Hero shirt would get one.  Work with us and we can make this one happen!  1 shirt, 1 dollar.  Think about it ... we really do make a great team!

So, as we prepare for the 4th annual PackOut, this coming Saturday, we're hoping for ...

*More shirts

*Enough funds to get them all shipped

*Lots of smiles as our Heroes & Angels come together to make this all happen once more.

*Blue skies the day of the PackOut ... Because the Hero Static Display is gonna be an amazing (outdoor) thing!

Thank you all for staying with us as the years pass.  i know, sometimes we are probably a pain in your (you choose it).  But the reality is that every shirt is a troop getting an assurance that no matter the politics, or what is on the news ... They are not forgotten by the folks back home who understand what it is to put it all on the line in a moment's notice.  These are our Heroes.

We have promised to stay with this effort til they are brought back home, and we will ... but we will need your commitment to keep it going.

So, we keep going toward the PackOut.  Tomorrow I will post the day's events.

Thank you all for what you have done ... and for all the smiles you are about to send!  Without a doubt, you are all Heroes!

lj

Tags: hero, firefighter, police, troops, morale, military, herotohero.us, deployment, shirts