East Texsa Military Families and Friends

Operation Appreciation is a project where volunteers send their love and support to deployed troops overseas by collecting and purchasing items, and making donations of their time and/or money. Since Operation Appreciation was initiated by St. Michaels and All Angels Episcopal Church in Longview, TX, Operation Appreciation has grown and includes many other churches of all denominations in East Texas.

You are invited to participate as an individual or a group. The most important thing?

That the men and women in our military are constantly reminded they are not forgotten.

December 14, 2009

To Our Treasured Supporters:

We wrapped up the sixth Christmas of Operation Appreciation with great success last month, sending care packages for American troops deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and other dangerous postings. We reached more people than ever before.

Thanks to the generosity of scores of East Texas individuals, professional offices, congregations, Sunday school classes, students, businesses, civic organizations, veterans and family members we were able to ship nearly 400 packages for our “Christmas” cycle. Many thanks for your donations of goods and funds that helped make this possible.

We have already received a good number of letters from folks on the battle front thanking us for the packages and telling us how much they can boost morale. Chaplains have written to tell us how much the packages we send to them help in their efforts to support the troops under their care. Individual troops have often told us about how impressed their fellow troops are with the kind of support that comes out of East Texas.

You should all be proud of the role you play in supporting Operation Appreciation and its efforts to offer tangible support to the men and women serving in harm’s way for the United States.

Our next project will be the Girl Scout Cookie Run. If I do not have your e-mail address, please send it to me and I will e-mail you the flyer. The Girl Scouts will start taking pre-orders Jan. 8. I suggest you order cookies from a family member or Girl Scouts in your church to spread the support. If you do not know any Scouts, we have 4 or 5 girls at St. Michaels we can order from. After pre-orders we will continue to collect money to buy cookies at the booth sales and for shipping. We also would like to add some of the new Starbucks VIA instant coffee to the package. I will tell you the cookies are really popular with the troops. The cookies will be shipped in March.

God bless each and every one of you.

Margie Litterski, coordinator

pterski@sbcglobal.net