Our "no storebought cards" restriction seems like an arbitrary attitude toward donated cards that are printed by a manufacturer. But please let us explain — we have a number of reasons we're no longer able to accept them except as AnyHero letters.
Un-useable cards
When we first began this whole project, we accepted storebought cards. And not only did we receive a lot of them — we also received a lot that were completely un-useable! We had thousands and thousands of Father's Day cards for grandsons, We've Moved cards, Happy Birthday to a 6 year old (hundreds and hundreds of them), and Merry Christmas to a first cousin. (Yes, they really do make them!) The likelihood of a unit deployed overseas having a need for that kind of specific card is very very small!
Quantity and time factors
We also were given crates and crates of storebought from estate sales, and it took massive amounts of time to process, sort, and determine what among them was even able to be used. Many were yellowed, damaged, or so dated that a hero wouldn't be too likely to actually use them. The time spent on these was taking a toll on our shippers, and giving less time and attention to our beautiful handcrafted cards.
Hero feedback
Out of all the feedback we've gotten from our heroes, one of two negatives had to do with storebought cards. Last Christmas we had so many cases, we sent one large battallion one box of handmade and one box of storebought. And they told us that no one used the storebought, and they ended up on the burn pile! It was so sad. We had tried to share with a group large enough that they might be happy for storebought cards, but our hearts broke at the thought that they believed we sent them goods that were less than our best — they knew our handmade cards, and that clearly made our decision: no more storebought cards.
The bottom line
So we ask that you find another charity that might wish to use storebought cards you've collected, or perhaps cut the pretty images off the front and use them on your own cards. You can use storebought cards for AnyHero letters, however — there are NO restrictions on those! Take them to your local group, school, or church and ask folks to sign them for our heroes!
Friday, September 4, 2009
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8 comments:
My granddaughter is making cards she wants to send to troops , as a girl scout project. Some are hand made from scratch. Some have cut out objects from store bought cards, then attached and embellished. Am I understanding correctly, in this note, that those with the cut outs are indeed aceptable?
Yes, those are handmade! Thanks so much---love hearing your granddaughter is getting involved! :)
thanks so much for the explination, I have a group who wants to recycle used greeting cards and I was worried about weather we could use them here.
Check here for using recycled cards.
http://stjudesranch.org/help_card.php
Is it okay to create a digital card and then print it on card-stock,...or is that not handmade?
Is it okay to take a photo and alter it digitally and print it on card stock or is that not homemade?
Thank you very much!
Gigi, the only problem with printing out an image straight onto the card, our heroes don't really know if it's a drawing or whatever that you made. It's just like a storebought one, and they tell us those don't really get used. You could do that and embellish or color it though, something like that.
Photos are ok as long as you own the copyright to it. You can always trim those out and adhere them onto cardstock, and that's just fine!
What about stickers on an otherwise homemade card? I found some really nice military inspired Creative Imaginations stickers that I'd like to use but I wanted to be sure that it was O.K. first.
Peggy, stickers are fine - they can be a great substitute for a stamped image sometimes. I like to use them in the same ways I'd use an image on a sketch :)
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