PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2007-11-05 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Holiday Mail for Heroes (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • Recent years have seen several Internet-based grass-roots promotions of programs that enable the public to send letters, cards, gifts, and other greetings to U.S. troops serving overseas or recovering in stateside hospitals, particularly around the holiday season. Unfortunately, many such promotions (such as the Recovering American Soldier effort) have not worked out as well as hoped due to insufficient organization, deadlines, security concerns, and other factors. Up through the 2013 holiday season, the Red Cross and Pitney Bowes sponsored a Holiday Mail for Heroes program to distribute holiday cards to service members, a program that encompassed not just troops who are recovering in military hospitals but also service members stationed throughout the U.S. and abroad, as well as veterans and their families. Well-wishers who wanted to get Christmas (and other seasonal) cards to U.S. service members could send those cards to a single national address, and the Red Cross/Pitney Bowes partnership would sort and distribute them to service members stateside and abroad. Now, however, the Red Cross has discontinued the national aspect of the program in favor of having card collection and distribution handled at the local level, so there is no longer one single mailing address for Holiday Mail for Heroes cards: The Red Cross has also provided these guidelines for sending cards to service members: Those wishing to donate may want to explore the Military Families section of the Red Cross website. E-mailed entreaties from previous years have urged Americans to send cards addressed to A Recovering American Soldier or Any Wounded Soldier care of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), but Walter Reed officials have said that any material so addressed will not be delivered: Furthermore, that is also out of date by a number of years. The former Walter Reed Army Medical Center closed in August 2011, and merged with the National Naval Medical Center to form the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, Maryland. WRNMMC's Facebook page instructs readers that holiday mail for service members should be sent through the Holiday Mail for Heroes program. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url