 |
| "Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes" is our yearly Christmas project for the troops! |
 |
CLICK HERE to view USPS Mailing Deadlines for Holiday Packages Help us make the Holidays special for thousands of brave deployed military! The more help we receive the more boxes we can ship and the more SMILES we can bring on Christmas Day! Please remember our brave troops who are going to be so far away from home this Holiday Season protecting OUR freedom! HOW CAN YOU HELP?? Individuals, Businesses, Clubs, Schools, Youth Groups, 4-H clubs, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, etc. -- this a great opportunity for you to hold a drive for items to be wrapped for Christmas care packages or help raise postage funds to help us cover the unbelievable costs of postage for this project! Set out a collection box in your business or school, take up a special offering at church in honor of our troops, have a contest within classrooms by doing a "penny pitch", hold a bake sale, buy a large quantity of our "car magnets" to sell. We would also love Christmas cards or letters to include in the boxes, this is a great project to get the whole family involved in! WHAT TO COLLECT?? We send necessity & snack care packages all year long, but like last year we want the Christmas packages to be EXTRA special full of wrapped Christmas gifts for them to open. Some ideas of items to collect for Christmas packages include: DVD's & CD's T-shirts, Socks & Underwear AT&T Phone Cards Disposable Cameras Boxed or Electronic Handheld Games Crossword Puzzles Stationery Boxes or Tins of Candy or Cookies (not homemade) Cherry Chocolates (they shipped great last year and were a big hit!) Beef Jerky The ideas are endless....any items that would make a great wrapped gift! Items can be brought into our headquarters located at 315 East Poplar Street, Harrisburg, Illinois (right on Route 13, downtown Harrisburg). Or if you are needing to ship your items in, they can be sent to: "SI Yellow Ribbon" (Holiday Hugs) 315 East Poplar Street (or PO Box 602) Harrisburg, Illinois 62946 If you need to reach us for further information, questions, etc. feel free to call us at 618-252-7721 or 618-926-7721. You can email us at siyellowribbon@onemain.com or fax us at 775-521-3728. DEADLINE: ALL items, cards, etc. for our Holiday packages MUST be IN OUR HEADQUARTERS BY NOVEMBER 25th, 2004. The following few days will be spent preparing the packages to the be mailed out before December. Everything will be going out our headquarters via Priority Mail. We hope our success is just as good as last year, as we were VERY pleased with the timely manner the packages arrived in time for Christmas! CLICK HERE To view photos from the 1st Annual "Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes" Press Release 2004 2nd Annual “Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes” Kick-off The Christmas season has officially kicked off in the headquarters of “SI Yellow Ribbon” in Harrisburg, Illinois, a voluntary, non-profit organization that started in March of 2003 sending care packages, cards and letters to deployed military and lending support to their families left behind. Since “SI Yellow Ribbon” started, the family run operation consisting of a mother and daughter have sent to literally thousands of military members serving overseas. What started out as a local operation sending to local Southern Illinois soldiers expanded nationwide last November when news of the organization hit the wire service and was broadcast through such outlets as CNN, Fox News and hundreds of newspapers, TV and radio stations. After that, what originally was a few hours of volunteered time, took a turn and has now often turned into an around the clock venture. Although they take care of the daily task of keeping a headquarters open, packing boxes, filling out the custom forms, mailing the boxes, etc., they depend on the public to help supply them with items to fill the boxes and money to mail the packages which can run very expensive. That is where schools, churches, civic organizations, clubs, businesses and individuals can help by holding fundraisers, conducting drives or taking the organization on as one of their helping charities. There are thousands of deployed military names that could be sent to but how many the couple can actually send to depends on the generosity of the public. Deployed military names are submitted to the organization by family members, Commanders, other soldiers, etc. and are never solicited. Names are not given out to the public but anyone wanting to send cards and letters are encouraged to do so by giving to the organization to put in boxes going out. Although necessity items and snacks are sent on a daily basis they ask for the “Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes” Christmas project that a different kind of item be donated with suggestions of DVD’s, CD’s, t-shirts, socks and underwear, AT&T phone cards, disposable cameras, boxed or electronic handheld games, crossword puzzles, stationary, boxes or tins of candy or cookies (not homemade), beef jerky, canned hams and other items suitable for shipping. Like last year, the group plans to gift wrap items to add a touch of home when it travels overseas. Gift cards can be given so needed items can be purchased. Monetary donations are also especially needed since postage can run anywhere from $15.00 to $25.00 to ship each box. It is not too early for individuals and groups to get started on this Christmas project as packages will be mailed quite early to ensure delivery before the holidays. The group also plans to send small personal Christmas trees to military members in the month of October so donations from groups on large quantities of these artificial trees would be greatly appreciated also. Anyone interested in wanting to help are encouraged to go to the organizations website at www.siyellowribbon.com. The headquarters where items or donations can be dropped off is located at 315 East Poplar, Harrisburg and is open Monday-Friday 1-3pm or by appointment anytime. Info can also be obtained by emailing siyellowribbon@onemain.com or by calling (618) 252-7721 or (618) 926-1299. If you are looking for a way for you as an individual or for your club, church, school, business, etc. to reach out to a deployed military member who will be in a foreign land at Christmas away from loved ones and friends, this is your chance to help. No help is too small or too large. Let’s show our military that we support them and care about them here at home. Holidays can be a very lonely and depressing time especially for the brave men and women who are defending our freedom that we might enjoy our Christmas with our family in a safe and loving atmosphere. |
 |
| **Please do not reproduce the above photo without the permission of "SI Yellow Ribbon" A very special visit by the jolly old red-suited man himself was recently enjoyed by some of the men and women deployed to the Middle East when he visited them to kick off the upcoming Holiday Season. Captain William P. Miller, was one of those military members who took time out of his very busy schedule to enjoy visiting and telling Santa what his Christmas "wants" were even sitting on Santa's lap in complete battle gear. Miller is one of thousands of deployed military who enjoy cards, letters and packages from "SI Yellow Ribbon", |
| 2nd Annual "Holiday Hugs" AFTER CHRISTMAS UPDATE: ***Thank you for making our 2nd Annual "Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes" project a success! We are getting such heartwarming emails, cards and letters from "soldiers" and we are hearing what smiles we brought for Christmas - without YOU this wouldn't be possible - thank you for your support!!! Although, we didn't reach the goals we had hoped, we were satisifed with the number we were able to reach!*** |
| Read below about our "2nd Annual Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes" Or click here to see photos and read about our 1st Annual "Holiday Hugs To Our Heroes" |