{"id":25174,"date":"2019-11-08T11:49:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25174"},"modified":"2019-11-14T22:46:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T03:46:55","slug":"holiday-cards-will-help-warm-serving-soldiers-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/holiday-cards-will-help-warm-serving-soldiers-hearts\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday cards will help warm serving soldiers\u2019 hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Monday, Canadians from coast to coast will pause at\nthe eleventh hour to remember those who have fallen during wartime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they do so, they will stand and reflect alongside nearly\n100,000 full-time and reservist members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are\nwilling to put themselves in harm\u2019s way for Queen and Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you pause and reflect during the week ahead, consider\nsetting your thoughts down on paper in a holiday card for soldiers serving\noverseas and here at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora resident Dianne Harrison is once again collecting\nholiday cards to send to soldiers around the world, hoping to collect enough to\nbrighten the season for more than 4,500 members. It might seem like a drop in\nthe bucket, she says, considering the full complement of the Canadian Army, the\nRoyal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and other branches of\nservice, but every card will touch a heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur troops need to know that we are thinking of them at\nthis special time of year and the sacrifices they are making not being at home\nwith their families,\u201d says Ms. Harrison. \u201cThey sacrifice so much and I think\nsometimes we just take it for granted. We look around the world and see what\u2019s\nhappening and we\u2019re in such a wonderful, safe place. I think we forget because\nwe\u2019re not bombed, we don\u2019t have the poverty that other countries have, and most\nof us probably couldn\u2019t imagine how [our soldiers] are living. It\u2019s time for us\nto give back and I think this is just a small token of how we can give back and\nsay thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each year, Ms. Harrison sets to work raising awareness of\nthis card-writing campaign by taking the message to local schools and leaving\ndrop boxes at various locations around town, including Town Hall, the Aurora\nPublic Library, and local recreation centres like the Aurora Family Leisure\nComplex and the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s campaign is well underway and has, so far,\nreceived a tremendous uptake from social media \u2013 not just here in Aurora, but\nalso in Nova Scotia, Alberta and British Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where there are not drop boxes, Ms. Harrison\u2019s dedication\nto the cause is such that she is willing to pick them up, if given enough\nnotice. The first batch of cards will be collected for shipment on November 17,\nwith the second and final collection taking place on December 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, in addition to\nsending cards to Canadian Forces bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain and Jerusalem,\nshe is expanding their reach and distributing cards to bases here at home,\nincluding CFB Borden, CFB Petawawa, and a number of other bases out west.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only requirement is that\nthe messages are heartfelt. Soldiers, says Ms. Harrison, love to hear about\nwhat\u2019s happening in the card-writers\u2019 lives, regardless of age, within their\ncommunities, and what matters to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou might think it is a small\ngesture here, but it is a very big gesture there,\u201d she says. \u201cIt shows love and\ncompassion, and that we love and care about them. I just wish we could so do something\nall year round, like be able to drop of 100 cards at the post office on\nFather\u2019s Day, Mother\u2019s Day and Easter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the letter writing campaign, including additional drop-off locations and how to arrange a pick-up, email Dianne Harrison at bdharrison2012@gmail.com<\/a>. Remember to include your name, address and email because you never know who will write back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Monday, Canadians from coast to coast will pause at the eleventh hour to remember those who have fallen during wartime. As they do so, they will stand and reflect alongside nearly 100,000 full-time and reservist members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are willing to put themselves in harm\u2019s way for Queen and Country. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/2019-11-07-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6y2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 00:37:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}