Hundreds of volunteers took part in a heartfelt holiday tradition Saturday.
New Britain High School was home to 'Boxes to Boots, Operation Cares 2024' where veterans, parents, and kids put care packages together for our men and woman stationed overseas.
NBC CT, Telemundo CT, and Comcast are proud partners of Boxes to Boots. Among those who volunteered were a few familiar faces from NBC Connecticut, including anchor Kevin Nathan, who was the emcee.
Organizers say the event is all about sending love, gratitude, and a little holiday cheer to service members who can't come home for the holidays.
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Inside each box is a variety of donated items such as snacks, games, and hygiene products.
These items are individually gift-wrapped and placed in the box before it gets shipped around the world. Some volunteers also wrote a little note for the solider who will get the care package.
"That's really our mission. To put as many smiles on our service members' faces as possible," said Boxes to Boots President Kristen Gauvin.
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Gauvin heard about this initiative in 2015. She says a mother from Berlin asked her community to help her send a few care packages for her son and his unit in Kuwait and Gauvin knew she wanted to get involved.
"It's so hard to thank a service member, and this is really only way possible. So, I really took a passion to it. She retired, and I decided to take over," said Gauvin.
This year, more than 1,600 care packages were shipped to service members deployed overseas. These boxes are also going to even more places this year, including 13 different countries and 33 different units.
"This means a lot to us because we know a lot of the military men can't come home for Christmas so we're just wrapping a couple things for them to let them know our appreciation for them," said Nathan Trapp, of Hartford.
Vietnam veteran Henry Stefanowicz, of Berlin, says that's why he was there to show his appreciation.
"In many ways, we felt like when we were in Vietnam, people had forgotten us completely. It was a difficult situation to deal with," said Stefanowicz.
A mom from Suffield was there for the first time in honor of her son who is currently serving in Africa. She says this is his third deployment in seven years.
"Just to see how people do Come together for an important cause, it makes me very happy...and emotional and sad. It makes me miss my son more but that's okay," said Hedrick.
