shiawasseecounty.net

Well it took me a while, but I am finally posting the wrap up for Troop Care 2008. (See the other shopping & shipping diaries here - http://www.bloggingformichigan.com/show ... aryId=3301 and here - http://www.bloggingformichigan.com/show ... aryId=3308.)

First, let's talk numbers. We raised about $1450 in product and cash. I'm "best guessing" on the value of the products, but several people donated items such as books, towels, make-up, and so on. I had some pictures of these items here - http://www.bloggingformichigan.com/show ... aryId=3301.

In terms of cash, we raised $1200 total, and I am proud to say that nearly half of that came from people in Shiawassee County. (I am really proud of that) Of that, we spent $371.90 on shipping. Some pics:


This is the full shipment, waiting to be loaded to go to post office.



Loading the truck. Ignore ice-scraper.





These last two pictures were taken at the post office in Corunna. Bob brought a cart out back and let me load it there, and then he pulled it in through the back for me.

We had another shipment of 7 or 8 boxes go out from a donor in the Ann Arbor area. I don't have pictures of that shipment.

So this year was definitely smaller than last year, but we had a couple of good reasons for that. First of all, we only had 8 units to ship to, rather than the 17 (or so) that we had last year. We didn't need to raise as much money. And initially, we set our goal to raise money for 6 units, but 2 more were added during the fundraiser.

Second, we didn't have the partnership with the UAW this year. The UAW raised over half of the cash last year, and they gave us momentum. Once we started raising thousands of dollars, more people started donating. Their participation made a big difference.

Third, I think all of us involved in Troop Care were a little uncomfortable in asking for money this year. We were coming off of an expensive political campaign which last all year (HRC has been asking for my money since at least February), and the economy is in the toilet. I certainly didn't feel good about begging for money from people who were already suffering from donor fatigue. So we just weren't "in your face" the way that we were in 2007. We may have lost some opportunities as a result.

Nevertheless, I'm very proud of the results. We briefly considered not launching the Holiday Troop Care program at all this year, due to all of the above. However, we felt we could raise at least $200, and if we were able to do that, we'd kick in the rest from our account, and be able to get at least 1 flat rate box to each unit.

Troop Care still has a way to go before we perfect the logistics. Shipping is still difficult to plan. This year we ordered flat rate boxes instead of using regular boxes. (See last year's shipping pictures here - http://www.bloggingformichigan.com/show ... aryId=1217) We did this because our goal was small and we thought this would meet our needs, and because it would be easier to plan our shipping expenses. (Last year I was about $600 off and had to do another round of shopping & shipping) However we ended up sending some of these boxes half full, because we had no other boxes to use. I boxed myself in (pun partially intended) and didn't have enough flexibility when I needed it.

We also have to get better at learning what we can send before we send it. For example, we learned last year that we can't send anything like baby wipes because they have alcohol in them, so this year we didn't buy any baby wipes. However, we did not learn that we could not send contents under pressure, because we didn't send any contents under pressure last year. So I got to open the hygiene boxes at the post office, and remove all shaving cream before shipping. Fun stuff. (Bob was extremely good to me, but declined my offer of shaving cream as a token of thanks.)

Still, it's not too bad for rank amateurs who only do 1 big project each year. And this year we asked for feedback from the troops, in the hopes that we can learn from this experience. Is it better to receive $10 worth of socks or $10 worth of food? Hopefully we'll find out this year.

Big fat thanks go out to everyone who helped out. You are the best!

I totally forgot to thank Barb at Tri-City Local - http://www.tricitylocal.com

She's the one who organizes the schools and gets the cards from the kids. She also raised over a thousand dollars worth of products for the unit in Afghanistan last year. It was a Naval Reserve unit out of Selfridge, and they asked for toys for the kids there. Barb got them several boxes of stuffed animals and beanie babies.

She's awesome.

Wow! Kudos to all you grassroots community organizers who pulled it off again this year!

I think that would be about 99% Christine...............great job