By KEN de la BASTIDE
One by one, volunteers and staff members of the Red Cross ensured holiday greetings to service members and veterans were appropriate.
As part of the Holiday Mail for Heroes program, sponsored by Pitney Bowes, the Howard County Red Cross received approximately 1,500 holiday cards to be forwarded to service members, family and veterans.
“We make sure the cards are appropriate and make sure they don’t contain any personal contact information,” Mitch Figert, executive director, said Monday.
The local Red Cross has received cards for distribution from Florida, California, Iowa and Maryland.
“We’ll have them all sorted today,” he said. “We sort them by veterans, wounded veterans, servicemen and women by branch and family.”
Figert said this was the first year Howard County participated in helping to sort the cards.
Some of the cards will be provided to the local Blue Star Mothers chapter for distribution; some will be sent to Red Cross offices overseas.
“We did this earlier and none of the cards were negative,” Figert said. “They have all been positive.”
Many of the cards are handmade by children.
Volunteer Pat Rinehart would occasionally break out in laughter as she read the cards.
“It’s great to see what the kids have written and what they are feeling,” she said.
Ainsley Hall, 8, a student at Howard Elementary School, was helping her mother, Beth, Monday.
“I’m getting to help sort the cards,” Ainsley said. “These are going to soldiers. It’s fun to help.”
Ainsley said she made a card to send that simply stated, “Thank you for all you do.”
Beth Hall said the cards come in bundles of 50, while sorting through a stack of cards sent by a Girl Scout troop in Florida.
“We can handle it,” she said of the sorting.
Hall said boxes are being placed at several locations around Kokomo for cards to be placed for mailing.
“This is a good community,” she said.
• Ken de la Bastide is enterprise editor of the Kokomo Tribune. Contact him at ken.delabastide@kokomotribune.com or 765-454-8580.
