HILLSBOROUGH: Volunteers to fill shoe boxes with supplies for troops

   As part of the third annual Martin Luther King Day of Service, Jersey Cares is teaming up with Operation Shoebox New Jersey to send care packages to U.S. troops overseas.
   From 10 a.m. to noon on Monday, 10 volunteers from Jersey Cares will gather at Operation Shoebox, located at 152 Route 206 south in Hillsborough, to assemble the packages in shoe boxes from donated items.
   ”We’re not actually going to be doing the collection,” said Brian Dean, executive director at Jersey Cares. “We’re going to be organizing all of the food and hygiene items that have been collected already and assemble them into care packages.”
   After the shoeboxes, which are donated by Ferguson Containers, are stocked, Operation Shoebox will send them to troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle East countries. The organization usually gets the boxes out pretty quickly.
   ”It’s usually within a week to two weeks after the boxes are packed up that they get sent overseas,” said Rod Hirsch, the founder and executive director of Operation Shoebox.
   Supplies for the care packages consist of lip balm, sun block, moist wipes, non-aerosol bug spray, non-aerosol deodorant, bars of soap, small bottles of shampoo, powdered drink mixes, cereal/snack/granola bars, individual packets of oatmeal, individual packets of hot chocolate, small cans of tuna with pop tops, small cans of fruit with pop tops, microwave popcorn, athletic socks, batteries of all sizes, gum, candy, small boxes of cereal and small bags of trail mix, peanuts and pretzels.
   ”We probably average about 600 to 700 boxes a month,” Mr. Hirsch said. “The people from Jersey Cares will be coming here on Martin Luther King Day to help sort stuff, pack up bags, put the bags in the boxes and get the boxes taped up to send overseas.”
   In addition to working with Operation Shoebox, an all-volunteer organization that was founded in 2005, Jersey Cares has 40 other service projects with thousands of volunteers scheduled throughout New Jersey on Monday. Volunteers hope to embody Dr. King’s vision and bring people of all ages and backgrounds together to strengthen their community and bridge social barriers, according to organizers.
   ”This is the first year (we’re working with Operation Shoebox),” said Mr. Dean. “We’re reaching out and expanding to a lot of different organizations.
   ”We’ve wanted to increase our impact across the state. This year it’s grown and will be about 2,000 people, so Hillsborough and Operation Shoebox were on the list for expansion. We knew they did great work and we were happy to be able to bring some volunteers to them for MLK Day this year.”
   The program at Operation Shoebox, which “filled up at least a month in advance,” Mr. Dean said, will be the first in a long line of collaborations between the two organizations.
   ”We look forward to doing this into the future,” Mr. Dean said. “Operation Shoebox, I’m sure, is going to be a great partner. We look forward to replicating this project for many years.”