Operation Care and Comfort Uses Santa Clara as Base of Operations

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make all the difference in the world. That’s the idea behind Operation Care and Comfort, a nonprofit based out of a small storage locker in Santa Clara.

Once a week, volunteers gather at the locker on De La Cruz Boulevard to pack boxes for America’s troops overseas.

On Oct. 29, the volunteers were joined by a number of members of the United States Postal Service to help pack boxes and prepare them for delivery just in time for the holidays.

Richard Keppeler is the Executive Postmaster of San Jose; he’s also a veteran who served in the military in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While he served before Operation Care and Comfort was founded, he said the feeling of getting something from home was immeasurable.

“When I served, I spent all of my time away from home. Getting stuff in the in the mail and getting care packages was a big deal,” said Keppeler. “It didn’t matter if it was a bag of chips, if it was a letter, if it was something just to give you a little reminder of what it was to be at home. It was a big deal. It was a very big deal.”

Keppeler says helping out now brings him a different type of joy.

“I feel like, when you’re overseas doing a job, people forget … they’re dealing with their own issues. They’re dealing with the election and who they’re going to vote for,” said Keppeler. “So, they forget about their soldiers that are overseas, many of whom are still in dangerous situations. So, it makes me feel good that we’re remembering them and that they know that we care about what they’re doing and we appreciate what they’re doing over there.”

Julie DeMaria is one of the co-founders of Operation Care and Comfort. She says the nonprofit started in her garage in the early 2010s and has grown from there. To this day, Operation Care and Comfort remains a 100% volunteer organization. It’s the support and donations from the community that keep it running.

“Money is always, of course, number one. Number two is the items. I mean, if you go to our website, we’ve got a great shopping list,” said DeMaria. “There are things that everybody has in their home that they can donate. You go traveling, it’s like, ‘Oh, I got to take these toiletries. I mean, I paid for them.’ Or you get samples in the mail. Or you might give to a charity and you end up with 8,000 pens, notepads and stickers. Things like that can be donated to go into the care package.”

The nonprofit also runs a few major events every year, including a poker tournament and a golf tournament. But DeMaria says the most important thing you can do to help can happen in the comfort of your own home.

“They could sit at home and write a few notes and letters to go into the care packages, which by far is the most precious thing to those troops,” said DeMaria. “You have to understand that sometimes that might be the only note that they received during their whole deployment. They may never receive a care package or anything. But you know, the notes and, oh God, all the handmade cards and things like that that we put in there means so much to them.”

Operation Care and Comfort serves troops all over the world, including Asia, Europe and Africa. It focuses specifically on troops deployed to conflict regions. About 90% of the recipients have signed up or had someone sign up for them.

To find out more about Operation Care and Comfort, visit their website at occ-usa.org.

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