Nonprofit’s care package service protects troops’ identities and location while allowing patriots to send customized yet inexpensive gifts

Just in time for the holidays, Operation Homefront launched eCarePackage, an on-line service that allows caring citizens to send care packages to deployed troops and their families. Service members and families register on http://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 service member 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 service member 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 generous 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.

eCarePackage 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’s programs are so effective that it recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Defense Department to ensure greater collaboration.
For more information about eCarePackage or Operation Homefront, please call (850) 438-5710 or cinc@cinchouse.com.