Deployed Soldiers Receive Care Packages Filled with Love

By: Marisa Kutansky

Community Writer

Photo Courtesy of:

Stater Bros. Charities

Photo Description:

A volunteer helps assemble care packages to be shipped overseas to U.S. soldiers deployed on duty. Volunteers from Stater Bros. and Operation Community Cares worked to put together the care packages, each valued at $50.

Over 200 members of the Stater Bros. Family of Employees, its supplier friends, and representatives from Operation Community Cares, a local organization that supports U.S. troops, joined forces on Saturday, June 13,to assemble over 1,000 care packages for our local soldiers who are serving overseas. Each care package was valued at $50, and members of the Stater Bros. Family of Employees funded over half of this project, with the remainder coming from the company’s supplier friends. Some of the 65 items included in the care packages were coffee, oatmeal, beef jerky, sunflower seeds, assorted toiletries, magazines and game books. Everyone involved in this project was asked to provide names of family members and friends who are currently deployed. With the help of the United States Post Office, these care packages will soon be in the mail and in the hands of grateful soldiers. “Stater Bros. founders Leo and Cleo Stater were World War II veterans and service to our great country is part of the Stater brothers’ legacy that we proudly celebrate today,” stated Jack H. Brown, Chairman and CEO of Stater Bros. Markets and a Navy Veteran. “Stater Bros. is pleased to let these courageous soldiers know that we in the Heartland are thinking of them and praying for their safe return,” Brown further stated. “It’s hard to put into words all the emotion and feeling that come from a parent calling to tell you how much a simple care package meant to a child thousands of miles from home,” said Ryan Orr, President of Operation Community Cares. “We have also been told that care packages save lives, because a service person who is alert and happy is more aware, and this can save a life.”