Soldiers' Christmas/Holiday Care Package Update

I just finished shopping for the soldiers' care packages that I hope will arrive there in time for Christmas. Upon finishing this post, I will be off to the post office to mail out one box. The contents of that one are:

One Package of 80 Baby Wipes

Two boxes of Nutri-Grain bars

One box of gallon sized Zip-Lok plastic bags (they supposedly come in very handy with all the fine dust over there)

One 4 pack of Spam

One bag of Sun Died Fruit

Another package will be sent straight from the online dealer from whom I purchased the items for that package. I want those to be a surprise for the guys and gal in Michael ____'s unit, so I will not say what was in the box until I know it was received or until after Christmas. That package alone went for $176.67. The items themselves cost $155.89 and the shipping was $20.78 (as usual I paid for the shipping myself). We had, as I recall off the top of my head, $140.44 left in the fund from donations. That means I also contributed $15.45 for the items in said package. In addition I paid for all of the items in the other package mentioned above out of my pocket. I am guessing that was about $30 to $35, plus I also will pay for the shipping.

The money from donations has all been used to purchase items for the packages. As of today, all of the packages, for which donation money was used, will have been shipped to Michael ____ , my assigned soldier. I will not have another chance to send any packages that have a chance of arriving before Christmas because I will be away for the next week and a few days starting tomorrow. When I get back, I will commence sending care packages again but am no longer acceptng fonations now that the holiday packages are all sent off.

All the best,
GB