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Deployment Resources

Daddy Dolls: If you have young children at home and your Marine is getting ready to deploy, I highly recommend buying one or if you are a family in need or meet certain requirements, you can get a doll for free.

Flat Daddies and Flat Mommies are life-size photos of deployed service members. They are provided to help children better cope with the separation they experience when a parent is away from home for long periods of time.

Henry Hero Bear: An 11″ cuddly teddy bear accompanied by a story book designed to help young children cope with the absence of a military parent or loved one during a long deployment.

Operation Kid Comfort: The Armed Services YMCA’s innovative Operation Kid Comfort program creates custom-made quilts and pillows for children of deployed U.S. military personnel who experience grief from missing their mom or dad. Photos of the deployed parent are printed onto fabric and sewn into the quilt or pillow. Each child received a quilt/pillow depending on age. Children 6 and under receive a quilt, 7 and older receive a pillow. Both quilts and pillows contain pictures of the deployed parent. Each quilt takes eight hours of volunteer sewing, as well as $45 worth of quilting materials. The program started at the ASYMCA Fort Bragg location as has expanded to serve military families nationwide.

Operation Love (OpLove) Love Reunited: The last thing on your mind when your wife or husband arrives home after a 4 to 18 month tour, is capturing all this love– on film. Most people are so overwhelmed with emotions they forget to simply point and shoot the camera they are grasping of their child’s first hug, or that single tear of relief from a mother being able to hold her twenty year old son again. With the help of Operation: Love ReUnited and local photographers near your base, you can.

Project Evergreen: Connects local green industry professionals with men and women serving our country in the armed forces away from home. GreenCare is in the process of helping hundreds of volunteers provide free lawn (and snow removal) and landscape services for thousands of military families nationwide.

Welcome Them Home: A network of photographers who donate their time and skills to military and their families as a thank you for the sacrifices that are being made for our country. Each photographer in the network has agreed to photograph your homecoming, free of charge.

Free Care Packages: There are a number of organizations which will send your Marine a care package or letter to their APO/FPO address overseas. Many of these organizations will send a package to your loved one, but many of them have a variety of different ways they help the families remaining behind and those deployed.

 

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