Help bring a touch of home to soldiers

Submitted by John-Henry Lambin

Special to The R-C

My sister Rachael and I started a project about six months ago called Touch of Home, a project that focuses on our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have been volunteering most of our lives while living in Carson Valley through organizations like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and 4-H and it has really made us feel wonderful.

While attending a conference this summer we had a moment where we felt a profound sense of gratitude for what our soldiers are doing for us in the Middle East. It's really wonderful that we are able to pursue our education at UNR in engineering and medicine.

I think that what hit home was that several of my friends have left to fight and to defend our country and we wanted to do something to say thank you. We started collecting simple things like socks, hygiene products and even a stuffed bear with a personal letter attached, as well as books and Bibles. These are my brothers and sisters fighting and I really am grateful to them and think that this is a wonderful way of just saying thank you, and letting them know that there are people here at home that are remembering them and their sacrifice.

On Veterans Day, we started preparing yet another group of packages for the soldiers and it was a wonderful day.

Touch of Home is preparing packages for the upcoming holidays in hopes that they will make it to the soldiers prior to Christmas. We are working with the National Guard and the Marines and hope to work with anyone that will give them names of these soldiers serving in the defense of our country.

I am hoping that the community may want to help us to send these packages to our soldiers, not only helping us with sending the packages but to find a friend to write to. Packages are great to get and fun to open but letters are really special and make you feel great. I really like getting snail mail and often find myself reading the letters over and over.

I hope that Touch of Home will bring people closer and just be able to remember these wonderful men and women. Thank you so much for helping us.

John-Henry Lambin

Rachael Lambin

TouchOfHome@mail.com

(775) 781-2534 or (775) 790-2035

dlambin@mac.com