 Over the past seven years, the kids at East Ridge High School, not me and on emphasize that, have been taking donations of snack foods, stationary cards, letters. Our English department actually sends out cards and letters. Our art department makes homemade cards to put in the care packages. We've sent out over 350 care packages to date at a shipping cost of over $6,000. The kids do this on their own. Right into the community and the community members donate generously. This community has opened its heart to Operation Care Package every year. Operation Care Package is the kids sending APO and FPO boxes to soldiers stateside and overseas who are away from their families. The ones that are overseas get care packages with very needed essential items like baby wipes, toothpaste, toiletries and snack foods. The ones stateside sometimes get more personalized packages just to let them know that we're concerned about them. Kids here at school are so generous and so open-hearted. They want to let them know that they genuinely appreciate their efforts being away from their families. And they can feel like they're having someone watching over them who cares for them, who is right there with them. It's good to know that there's someone who's fighting for our country, who's fighting for our rights and freedoms. I've been involved with it for eight years now because my brother was, when he started as a freshman here, that's when we got this whole thing started. We get stuff like justin said pens and pencils so that the service members can write back to their families, which is awesome. But the big thing that we need is monetary donations because shipping boxes is really expensive. So the more stuff that we have, the more money that we have to have to ship the boxes over there. It's important because these soldiers, these people that are serving, are giving up their family, they're giving up a lot of things so that they can serve and protect us. I feel like we need to give back to them to just show how grateful we are. The stuff that reminds them of home, their favorite shampoo, their favorite deodorant, anything like that, that reminds them of home makes them more comfortable in these other countries. So every year we get as much paper and things together as we can. My classes go make the car just a nice little message. If they have family members in armed forces, they can do the car specifically to them. So it's really cool that they can call out people and wish them a Merry Christmas and people that don't have anybody. My grandfather, he was in the Air Force. He was a radio operator. So I've been around military my whole life better than today. He means a lot and I know it's coming up soon. So it's good to tie that in with it. I just like serving any way I can because they're serving over there. I can do my little part over here. If somebody would want to make a card and bring it in to me, more than gladly. If they want to write out a message and then have one of my students decorate it for them, anything. Even if they have family members in the military that they know of, bring a card up here. If it's already decorated, that's fine too. Just whatever they want. We try to pack them full so they're now more than married. It's amazing to get care packages from home and stuff whenever you're over there. Even people don't get that you can't just go out and buy deodorant. Little things like that are really helpful, especially in the combat scenario where we're waiting sometimes a month on a package to get in. So we would get beef jerky and magazines. Newspapers from home are a big one because you're actually seeing what's going on. There was the Veterans Hall of Fame a couple years ago as we went into our rooms to where we were staying. They actually had care packages made up that were there. And it was awesome because they had schools make up the same as Easter Edge is doing that had those things to where we actually had shaving cream. So it brought those memories back to where we actually received stuff. So it was really good to get packages from home. It's really awesome. I mean it is because you actually see what you're fighting for because people actually care about what's going on. They care about you being over there. And probably the worst scenario it's ever been in their life. So it's really a big thing. I know personally I received packages from schools and the kids, the drawings and the letters. It really makes you feel very important. Like you're a role model and these children look up to you. And it really, it's pale in comparison to anything else you can ever experience in life for me personally. And it was just an honor to know that these children are thinking about us and sending us things to support us over there.