1,000 Cards for Our Troops: How to Organize |

I was asked to prepare supplies to make holiday cards
for our troops. The requirements were specific. The organization that
collects and mails the cards asked that the cards be made on plain
8-1/2″ x 11″ copy paper folded into quarters.

About ninety youth from our church assembled to make and write
sentiments inside more than 1,000 cards. This posed an exciting
challenge when it came to the pre-planning. The cards needed to be
simple enough and easy enough for everyone, yet still show that a lot of
thought and time and effort went into each one. No sloppy, hurried
work allowed!

I have to admit…it is much easier to create a complicated card than
it is to create a simple card. I looked at each sample card that I
came up with and could see that each one had so much more potential.
However, I kept reminding myself of the purpose of the task at hand. I
didn’t need to create the most gorgeous cards, I needed to create the
most appropriate and heartfelt cards. I wanted the troops to smile when
they opened each one.

Luckily, Michael’s had a sale on all of their holiday-themed foam
stickers. I combined the stickers with some easy stamping and came up
with twelve different cards. I wanted to make sure that the youth
didn’t get bored. Variety is the spice of life!

I placed each card and its supplies inside of a deep-dish disposable
lasagna pan. All of the supplies, including paper, pens, stickers, ink,
rubber stamps, and samples were in each pan.

We put a lasagna pan on each table. It was fun to see how each group
tackled the job of making so many cards. Some groups worked in an
assembly-line fashion, some groups were really slow, some were really
fast, but all of the groups had a great time. They collected granola
bars and hot chocolate, too. The event was a success!