How to Host a Military Care Package Event
How to Host a Military Care Package Event
Military Care Package Event Phase 1: Answer Key Questions
Decide who is heading the military care package event: It will be really helpful if you pick one person, or a handful of people to spearhead the event. They will be able to initiate key decisions, track progress, and serve as the main point of contact.
How big will your military care package event be?
Each military care package costs about $30 dollars to send including product and shipping costs. Use this estimate as a way to gauge how many packages you want to send. Consider your budget, how many volunteers you think you can garner, and your timeline.
Decide what you have for budget. Again, use that $30 per care package as an estimate to decide how much you have to spend. Also, consider if you will have to pay for an area to pack in or if you have a large, open space available to gather in for free.
Pick a location for packing your military care packages. Whether you have space at your organization’s office or you need to rent a space, make this decision early on. Conference rooms, libraries, gyms, or community rooms work best.
Set a packing event date. You’ll need to pick a specific date to pack up all of the care packages on. Consider when you and your volunteers will be available and, if you need to rent a space, what the availability of the location is.
Decide if you will raise funds. Will you be pulling funds from the company budget for team building/bonding or will you be raising funds? If you and your packing group need to raise funds, feel free to reach out to us for ideas on fundraising we have seen in the past.
Will you collect product donations or buy products directly? Sometimes it’s fun to collect donations of products (see master list on provided excel document for items to send) from local businesses and individuals throught your organization via collection boxes. On the other hand, if you don’t have much time or don;t want to worry about where all the collections are happening, you can use budget to purchase products and pack them in the boxes.
How will you get military addresses? Ship Thrifty has a military care package request form which allows you and your organization to distribute a secure form to collect addresses for service members that would like to receive a package. This form can be distributed through your organization to team members and their families. Then, from the pool of addresses collected, you can send the number of military care packages you budgeted for.
Decide what you’ll pack. This is your call and you can get creative. Have some fun making box themes and or decorating the inside. We’ve added a list of products that service members love to receive and/or are hard to get when deployed. We’ve also included a list of the most common restricted items. * If you have questions about restrictions, feel free to reach out.
Phase 2: Get Things Rolling for your Military Care Package Event
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Begin collecting military addresses. Remember that care package request form on ShipThrifty.com? Create your organization’s brandable page from our simple template and start circulating it through your organization and to team member’s families.
Here is a video on how to create the form.
Here is a video on how to use it.
Lock in your packing venue and estimate how long you think packing will take. Before extending invitations for people to join in and volunteer, know where you will be packing and the date so potential volunteers can mark their calendars and sign on for the commitment.
Gather team members and volunteers. Decide how far you want to extend the opportunity to volunteer. Is this event just for your team or for multiple teams across the organization? Start getting people to sign on for tasks and agree to be there to help on packing day.
Spread the word about the event. Whether you are shouting front the rooftop to garner organization’s support, collect product/donation, or trying to get some media coverage it is great to spread the word about your work and the mission.
* * If you are collecting product donations, start getting donation boxes lined up with local businesses and in the hub of your organization since it takes time for donations to come in.
** If you are raising funds, start standing up these initiatives as it takes time for people to find out about them and to donate.
Phase 3: Prepare for Packing your Military Care Packages
Get necessary packing supplies. Check our master list in the provided excel workbook to see what packing supplies you need. This is things like your large flat rate boxes for packing, tape, a tape gun, label paper, a printer, etc.
Fill out addressing information and create your labels ahead of time. If you collect addresses using the care package request form, the addressing information will be auto loadable into the address fields when creating the labels. Then, you can fill out the package details and customs information and save until you’re ready to print all the labels.
Here’s a video on how to create a military shipping label on ShipThrifty.com
Print out shipping labels ahead of time. Take the labels you created along the way and have saved in your Ship Thrifty account and print them off. Store them somewhere safe until packing day or print them out right before packing.
Purchase large flat rate boxes for packing. These can be purchased at a USPS location or ordered online at USPS.com. If you order online, be sure to give yourself enough time for the boxes to come before your packing date. If you are purchasing at a USPS location, be aware they may not have as many large flat rates as you need.
*Round up donations from collection sites. If you collected donations from various local businesses or at spots around your organization’s hub, round up the product in those boxes and have them in a centralized, safe location to transport to your packing location on or before packing day.
*Go purchase product. If you’re purchasing product outright, go buy that product and store in a centralized, safe location to transport to your packing location on or before packing day.
Send out a reminder to your packing volunteer team. As the packing event date gets closer, send a note out to all volunteers to remind them of the date, time, and general schedule for the event.
Coordinate carrier pick up or drop off for all of the packages. When packing is done and the boxes are sealed and have shipping labels attached, it’s time to hand them off to the post office team. You can either take all the packages to the post office or schedule a pick from the location you’re packing at.
If you are going to drop off at the post office, call ahead of time to let them know that on the packing date you will be bringing in the number of packages you’ve estimated for.
If you plan to do a pick up, you need to call to schedule that pickup on the packing date.
Phase 4: Packing Day for your Military Care Package Event
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Organize the packing location. Use the station guide image in the provided excel workbook to arrange your packing location. Ultimately, you can arrange the space however you like, but this method is one we have seen over and over again and is tried and true.
Assign team members to various stations. After the packing space has been arranged according to the station guide, invite volunteers to pick a station they would like to be at or assign stations ahead of time. If you are doing a lot of packages and will be packing for a long time, consider switching stations from time to time.
Build up shipping boxes. Your boxes will come flattened so take some time before the event begins to assemble them and tape them “into box form”. Be sure to use a few layers of tape on this part so they stay intake. Packages take a beating during shipping.
Do a double check. Before the event begins, do a double check to make sure you have the preprinted labels on hand, the product to pack, and packing supplies.
Pack all the boxes and tape em’ shut. This one is pretty self explanatory but we’ve got a few tips.
- Put heavy items on the bottom of the boxes.
- Save space and avoid paying to ship air by filling your boxes to the top (but don’t overstuff).
- Take individually wrapped items that come in bundle packages out of those bundles. Then you’ll just be placing the individually wrapped items in the box.
- Use soft items a=such as blankets, tee shirt, or socks as filler
- Put any liquids like body wash, shampoo, or conditioner in zip lock bags. That way, if they spill it’s contained and won’t destroy other items.
- Place scented items like soaps, hair products, and lotion in zip lock bags to avoid scent tainting food items.
Add the shipping labels. When it’s time to put the preprinted shipping labels on the boxes, avoid placing them on top of a crease in the box. Also, consider putting a layer of tape of the label so the paper portion is safe and always readable during transit. When taping over the label, make sure there are no creases in the tape. Creases on the label can impact the scanability of the label.
Do a final box count. Once all of the boxes have been packed and have postage attached, do a final count to check that all are there and if you finished as many as you planned for.
Hand boxes off. Here’s where your past hand off arrangements with the post office come into play. If you scheduled a pick up, there should be a post office employee ready to meet you (be sure to call the day of packing to verify). If you are dropping off, load the packers up and call the post office to let them know you’re on your way.
