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COVID-19 & Current Status
Hello Donors and Military Families!
Thank you for your patience during our silence. Our organization has been working to support our military families stationed overseas. It hurts us to not be able to accept new families, but weekly we receive word of another donor who is not able to continue due to financial and family changes or just lack of coupons to send.
Like the entire world, we are seeing some affects from the COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen donors tell us that they had been purchasing the Sunday paper for coupons, but can no longer do so. Donors telling us that they no longer have the disposable income to send the coupons. Military Families are telling us that the coupons they receive are less useful, as less food coupons are appearing in the newspapers / inserts. We are also hearing that packages larger than a standard (size 10) envelopes are being held up in shipment, causing some boxes of coupons to take 6-8 weeks to arrive to the military families.
The one blessing in this pandemic, thus far, is we have not received any word of family or donors lost due to this virus. Thank God for that!
As we stand today, we will continue to support our current matches. Pam Drigger has decided to step back, to focus on her family needs during this time. She has been the driving force behind CFT, so she is going to be greatly missed. I will try to pick up her tasks, so be patience with me! I will not be able to fill her incredible shoes, but I will do my best.
If I can help, please send an email or use the contact form. I will answer all questions as quickly as possible.
Lisa
Director / Volunteer
Closed to new Military Families
Coups For Troops have always prided ourselves on being able to serve our Military Families as effectively as possible. For our military families, we have always striven to assign multiple donors to each military families, in order for them to receive a variety of coupons. We understand that each Donor is sending the unwanted and expired coupons after their family uses what they need, so by assigning multiples Donors, our military families are more likely to receive a boarder range of coupons for their family.
Unfortunately, we feel the affects of more digital coupons and less people receiving the weekly newspaper. Throughout our history, Coups For Troops has always managed to have enough available donors to at least assign 1-2 donors as a new Military Family signs up. Then we would work to add additional Donors as we meet the needs of those we serve.
Over the last few weeks, the volume of new Military Families to sign up have greatly surpassed the volume of new Donors joining our program. Our current donors are at their capacity and can’t spread their coupons to cover more Families. For this reason, we are closed to accepting new Military Families. We are still accepting and assigning new Donors to serve the existing and new Military Families. We currently have 17 families on the waiting list. Once we have cleared the waiting list, we will determine if we can meet the need of our Military Families. At this time, we would rather service the families we have properly. We never want a military family to be disappointed with the volume of coupons they receive from our supporters.
Thank you for your continued support. If you would like to donate coupons for our Military Families stationed overseas, please go to the Direct Mail page and sign up.
~Lisa
Patience Please
The CFT Database is down for unscheduled maintenance. Due to this, if you are waiting for a match either as a Direct Mail or Satellite, we are unable to do so right now. Please fill free to go to our satellite location page until our database is back up and running. We are hoping for it to be back up within a week. We are sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions please send us an email and we will get back to to you ASAP. Thank you for everyones support of our program we couldn’t do it without yall.
Friendly Reminder!!
Hello Everyone. Just a reminder: Some of our families are receiving coupons past the 6 month expiration date. Please remember that coupons need to be no more then 60 days expired when they are sent so our Military Families have a chance to receive and use the coupons before they hit the 6 month mark. Thank you for everyones support of our program we couldn’t do it without yall.
Director’s Note – Quality vs Quantity
Hi CFT Supporters & Military Families!
I know you all don’t hear from me nearly often enough! I am working on doing more of these blog posts to tell you about what’s going on with Coups For Troops! First, a HUGE shout out to Pam & Stephanie! I couldn’t do this without these 2 great ladies. They handle much much more of the operations of Coups For Troops than I do. So please next time you interact with them via Facebook or email, give them a huge virtual hug!
I thought we would talk a bit today about Quantity vs Quality when it comes to Coupon shipments. As our Donors know, we ask that when you sign up to commit to sending at least a standard (size 10) envelope every 4-6 weeks to your adopted military family. We purposefully assign multiple donors to each military families, in hopes that they receive a new batch of coupons every couple weeks. We, of course, encourage our donors to send beyond the expected to give the military families as many coupons as possible to use and share. If you are mailing to a Swap Group Coordinator, then we ask that you send a box of coupons monthly, if possible, as they often support and share coupons between several families. Some of our Swap Group Coordinators have as many as 100 families within their swap groups.
While we appreciate donors who want to send to several families, we also want to make sure they are using their funds as effective as possible. A size 10 envelope, with up to a full ounce of coupons will cost about 50 cents to mail to your adopted military family. If you sent 16 1-oz envelopes, it would cost $8.00 in postage. While a single 1 lb, 0 oz small package could be mailed for $7.35. If you move up to using an APO/FPO medium flat rate box, you can mail up to 30 lbs of coupons for $14.35. This is the size of boxes that I use, and I can normally get roughly 14 lbs of cut coupons before the box is full.
We want to encourage you to maximize your postage. So if you have any questions about your current assignments or how you can better use your postage, please reach out. Pam, Stephanie or I would be happy to answer your questions regarding this or any subject.
It is my intention to post an informative Director’s Note at least monthly. If you have a question or topic you would like me to cover, please let me know. I’m here to serve you.
Lisa
2019! Welcome the New Year!
Hello Donors, Military Families, Supporters,
Coups For Troops had a wonderful 2018, with adding more Donors, more Military Families, and more Supporters. We are proud that we can serve so many military families stationed overseas, but of course, we couldn’t do it without our wonderful Satellite and Direct Mail Donors! They are the shining stars behind our program.
Our staff keeps the day to day operations going, while running their full time jobs and families! We even had a new addition to our staff family this year, as our Mail Coordinator, Pam Drigger gave birth to a son – Kaleb. He is adorable! Please be patient with her, on new assignments, because she’s running on the “new Mommy sleep schedule” aka no sleep.
We have a lot of growth in store for 2019! We are thankful to the people who help us financially to help with this website and our URL. All postage is currently self funded by the donors, and of course, none of our staff receives any payment.
We are always looking for ways to better serve the military families overseas. If you have an idea on how we can serve, please use the General Info contact form and submit a Suggestion.
Thank you for your service to our country and your support of Coups For Troops!
Sincerely yours,
Lisa Bowers
Director/Volunteer
Ready for the Sun & Summer Time!
Here at Coups For Troops, we are busy getting assignments matched and taking care of our military families stationed overseas. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad the sun is shining and Summer is finally here.
Huge shout out to Pam Driggers who has held down the “fort” over the last few weeks. As some of you are aware, the morning after Easter my Mother became suddenly ill and ended up in the Critical Care Unit. After 8 days, she passed away and Heaven gained a new Angel. That was a hard and unexpected time for me, and I believe I’m still somewhat in shock that she’s gone. I am also still struggling to resume life fully, so I’m slacking in helping out with Coups For Troops. Normally, Stephanie is right there with Pam in the emails providing awesome service, but at the same time, that I was out spending time at the hospital and with family, Stephanie was dealing with some medical issues of her own and having a minor procedure. She’s recovering nicely now as well, but is still on restrictive duty!
So give Pam a round of applause and if you’re emailing in, be sure to be extra sweet to her. She deserves it. Pam, I promise to double your pay* went things settle down! 😛
