Volunteers at Senior Helpers\u2019 \u201cSanta Post Command prepare holiday letters to be mailed to sailors on the USS Iwo Jima. PROVIDED<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the VA Christmas Celebration in Cape Coral Saturday, Dec. 6, veterans, caregivers and family stopped in at the\u00a0Senior Helpers\u2019\u00a0\u201cSanta Post Command\u201d to hand write cards filled with encouragement and holiday messages for service members unable to be home this season. The writers ranged in age from 5-year-olds to Vietnam veterans.<\/p>\n
This was an emotional, highly visual moment, according to organizers. Veterans sat down at Santa\u2019s Command Post and wrote messages like,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been in your shoes\u2026I know how you feel.\u201d\u00a0Several thanked volunteers through tears, expressing how meaningful it felt to send support directly to those currently deployed. <\/p>\n
At one point, a young girl wrote \u201cMerry Christmas, Dad,\u201d believing her note would reach him overseas.<\/p>\n
In total, 250 cards are now headed to 2,000 sailors aboard the USS Iwo Jima, and the VA has already asked Senior Helpers to return next year because of the overwhelming response to this effort supporting our troops overseas.<\/p>\n
The VA Clinic in Cape Coral is at 2489 Diplomat Parkway, E<\/a>. Visit va.gov<\/a> for more about the facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volunteers at Senior Helpers\u2019 \u201cSanta Post Command prepare holiday letters to be mailed to sailors on the USS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-83097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}