A Sad Farewell

In April 2011, Coups For Troops sent their first box of coupons overseas, under the director of the founder, Stephanie Almasy. After a few years, due to family commitment, Stephanie Lener stepped up from a volunteer to the Director, taking CFT to new heights and expanding the coupon shipments to over 14 counties. In early 2015, Stephanie asked me to follow in her footsteps to step up from a volunteer to the newest Director. One of the first goals I had was to get Coups For Troops recognized as a 501c3 non-profit charity. In October 2015, we received that distinction.

Since that time, the organization has served thousands of military families on every continent, with the support of tens of thousands of donors. Based on the feedback from our families, we save a military family on average over $1,500 per year with the coupons that are sent. We have seen military families transfer overseas and then back to stateside, donors come and then go as their situation changes.

Store loyalty cards were introduced here Stateside. We have seen online printable and digital coupons come along, and then online coupons being loaded directly onto the store loyalty card. Over the last 2.5 years, we have watched a steady decline in the number of coupons that come in the newspaper. We have been in dire need of additional donors for over a year, getting more requests from military families wanting to receive coupons than we can possibly fill. We made the incredibly difficult decision in October 2019 to not accept any additional military families, and to focus on just providing for the families to whom we had already committed. We hoped when making this decision that we would continue to add donors and be able to accept new military families again. Unfortunately, we continued to lose donors. Our existing donors email us saying they are receiving less coupons via newspapers and the mail. During this time, we also see cases of counterfeit printable coupons, to the point that some overseas commissaries will not accept home printed coupons. Thus, reducing the number of coupons available to be sent overseas. We receive information from our military families that because of the reduced number of coupons they are receiving, the usefulness of those has been cut to a quarter. In several cases, the family reports that what used to save them over a $100 per month, is now saving them $10-20. With the Covid-19 virus, we are also having donors tell us that due to family situations, they can no longer afford to send coupons. The number of donors asking to be removed and their families reassigned greatly outnumbers new donors joining our ranks.

It’s with heavy heart that I must announce that the CFT, Inc charity and Coups For Troops will be discontinuing service. We encourage existing donors to continue to send coupons to your families if possible. We encourage military families to communicate with their donors as to rather they want to continue receiving coupons. Please military families tell your donors if you are returning Stateside or if your situation changes. Over the next month, we will be seeking out another 501c3 charity that has a similar mission of supporting active duty military families. Any outstanding funds will be gifted to that charity. This is a sad day for us, but we are happy to be able to support another charity to continue our mission.

Thank you for the support, for the service to our country and the friendship. We had a wonderful 9 years of serving our military families.

Signed,

Lisa Bowers

Steven Long

Michael Miley