March 7th, 2020
Spring Packing Event
155 BOXES PACKED AT THE EVENT AND SHIPPED!!
We held our 2020 Spring Packing Event at the American Legion Post 273 in beautiful Madeira Beach, Florida. The legion has become one of the group’s favorite locations and the main go-to for many of our events. They are always amazing hosts! We are always made to feel welcome, and there are always so many folks out there helping us pack these boxes! As always, we had a really great turnout.
We had a lot of new members, and many familiar faces that have been with us from the beginning. Everyone was out there on a beautiful Saturday morning helping us do what we do. All of these volunteers coming out to help make our little pieces of home just that much more special. The Girl Scouts were with us once again with their cookie booth in full swing at the event. We had donations of cookies from many people, and TBTS even picked up a case from each of our supporting troops to send overseas. These amazing young ladies come through for our events every time.
There were some very special hand-made cards, folded flags, and hand-crafted touchstones that went in nearly every box. A lot of time and love that went into these gifts and will certainly bring a warm smile to those that receive them. In each box was also a t-shirt from My Hope Chest, and Greenway Health. Thank you to all who brought them, these will be treasured by the troops.
Michelle Fulmer brought her handmade jewelry out again as well – she hand makes these beautiful necklace and earring sets and donates 100% of the proceeds of her sales to our shipping. Thank you again for being with us every time!
A very special shout out to Joe Lambert and Mr. Joe’s Off The Beach for again hosting a very successful STUFF THE TRUCK event the week before our packing. These events are always fantastic, and we truly appreciate you!
In attendance were members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Team 79 Krunch, UPS, Galen School of Nursing, local churches and businesses, and many other incredible volunteers from the community and bay area donating goods, and helping pack boxes for our troops. Thank you to many businesses that came through for us and helped make sure we had money to ship these boxes. We also had an amazing number of our own members step up and donate to the cause right out of their own pockets!
We always have a lot of young people come out to help pack our boxes. This is something that means an awful lot to all of us at TBTS – we want to give a heartfelt thank you to the families of the kids in attendance. By bringing these young people out to an event and getting them involved, it plants seeds for the future – valuable seeds for these kids to grow up with the appreciation and understanding of giving to those who protect our freedoms. It is a bright and encouraging view of the future leaders of our country. We are proud to have you as part of our effort year after year.
I want to make special note to thank a handful of our die-hard members and some other volunteers that came out to our house to help us prep this shipment for delivery to the post office. This was the first event running without our warehouse space, and we were not sure how smooth it would go. It went extremely well for the tight space, and we had a blast in the process. Thank you to Nicole and Sammi for showing up at 6:00am at the post office to unload the trailer. That was awesome!
Our web-hosting and social media team BESTEDGE SEM continues to deliver, handling our social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and on the web. These people have amazing talent, and I happily recommend them! THANK YOU!!
Thank you to all of those unsung heroes that never appear in any of the pictures on the site, but never fail, year after year, to take time and hit that PayPal button on the website, or drop us a check in the mail, or hold a fund raiser online – your donations are key to us being able to ship out the packages – you make that happen! And thank you to our many corporate sponsors who always come through with donations for goods and postage. Thank you again to American Legion Post 273 and the Auxiliary for helping, hosting, and donating to our cause!I am very proud of what we do. I know I say it an all the time, but it never loses a single bit of meaning with me – you folks are an amazing group of people.
We have been at this a long time. We are now beginning our 14th year sending packages to our troops, and we are closing in on 12,000 boxes sent! Together we all have gathered goodies, raised shipping funds, brought in cards and letters, and packed boxes full of goodies to ship to our troops. Tampa Bay Troop Support has grown from a small family project into a huge family of dedicated members. Thank you all for believing in this effort and coming back time after time to join us.
More than anything, I want to thank our Troops – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and Reserves – all of you who stepped up and signed the line to protect the nation we live in. Thank you to those who have been there and back, those who have served, and those that are still serving, and prayers up for those that served and will not return. You incredible men and women are the reason we do what we do. You make sacrifices every day so that we may live in peace and enjoy the freedoms of our great country. You represent the ideals and honor of the United States of America, and we are proud of you.
You are our True American Heroes.