baking for the troops!

I've mentioned before that I baked cookies for our servicemen & women overseas. I read about this group in the local newspaper and then the blog called Operation Baking GALS. I have participated in 2 "rounds", each time mailing baked goods to different soldiers. This time I am hosting a soldier! And I need lots of help to send Cpl. LaBarbera and his platoon of fellow MPs some home-made love from their supporters back home.

Cpl. LaBarbera is my friend's brother in law. He is a police officer who was also in the reserves and his reserve unit was called up and sent to Iraq (hmm... just like my dad!). His unit is military police, and they go out on long night patrols. His wife indicated that he could really use some coffee, which he can brew in his camping coffee maker. This would keep his group awake & alert through the long nights. And also, who can't use some delicious home-made cookies to cheer them up?! So the name of my team is Coffee & Cookies. You can join my team by signing up on this website. It has moved from the original blog site because so many people are jumping on the wagon! What a wonderful thing! If you don't want to register at the site, at least email me to join the team and I will give you the address to mail to.

A little more info about this project. Basically what happens is I get a team of people to commit to sending baked goods (and/or coffee grounds) to my sponsored soldier. If you decide to join, I will give you the address and you must bake something and mail it during the week of Oct 31-Nov 7th. It will cost you about $11.00 if you get one of the military flat rate boxes from the post office. Also the coffee grounds and cookies would be out of your pocket. For more information, check out the FAQs on the Baking Gals site.

There is another thing that I think is really cool about this project, and the main reason why I wanted to join. Some of the soldiers get regular letters & packages from home, but not all of them do. One of the ideas behind Baking Gals is that we find a contact in a company or platoon and bombard that individual with a bunch of packages of cookies, etc. That person then can share all of the boxes with everyone in the platoon. Everybody gets a box. So, even if I don't know a soldier personally, I like to bake and who doesn't like to get mail, especially when you're far from home & loved ones... hopefully I'm cheering someone up and encouraging them in their work and I was only able to reach them because somebody knows somebody else and we all planned together to make this happen.

I can only imagine how lonely is must be to be stationed in the military overseas without your family. I haven't been in the military, but I spent that one summer in Japan and I appreciated SO MUCH getting mail in English that I could read and know that people at home were thinking of me.

Well, have I convinced you yet? Think about it. Email me with questions, or check out the indicated websites.