Everyone has heard about or maybe participated in the campaigns to send cards and letters to troops overseas and those in the hospitals around the world, but how many of you have thought about giving them a chance to make their own scrapbook pages and cards.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit some wounded servicemembers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and was pleasantly surprised to see a few tables set up within a physical therapy room to be used for arts and crafts.  I wandered over to the tables and noticed a small supply of some basic scrapbooking supplies; scissors, paper, pens, glue, some embellishments, and of course, a few men and women sitting around the tables making cards and pages.  

One person in particular was scrapbooking about her career in the military.  I watched and listened as she flipped through the pages she had made and told me stories about some of the photos, pages full of photos from her time in Basic Training through her time spent in Iraq.  She had a lot more embellishments on her pages, and had paper that was a lot different than the selection of paper that they had to offer in the plastic storage bin by the tabel, but I later learned that family and friends had been sending her the supplies she needed so she could work on her scrapbook during her months in the hospital.

I spent a few minutes talking with a nice lady in a blue apron who said she was with an organization called Help Hospitalized Veterans.  Her title was a Craft Care Specialist and she said that she could always use more scrapbooking supplies, because the donations that they get don't seem to last too long.  She really seemed to enjoy doing what she was doing and was always bouncing around and helping when needed.

The Craft Care Specialists with Help Hospitalized Veterans don't stop at scrapbooking, I saw someone working on a ceramic vase that he was a decorating, and another building a small photo frame.

So, the next time you hear someone talking about sending cards over to the troops overseas, maybe you can throw in the idea of donating some of your unused scrapbooking supplies to be used by the Servicemen and Servicewomen scrapbooking and doing other crafts at hopspitals around the world. 

Help Hospitalized Veterans (HHV) is a national, non-profit organization established for the purpose of distributing therapeutic arts & crafts kits, free of charge, to patients receiving care at Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers, state veterans’ nursing homes and military hospitals. Since 1971, Help Hospitalized Veterans (HHV) has delivered over 23 million kits, valued at $362 million. HHV also encourages volunteerism and pen-pal relationships with our hospitalized veterans.

Tags: donate, donations, hhv.org, veterans