May 21, 2012
LOUDON COUNTY, Tenn. (WVLT) – An East Tennessee charity is helping a pair of area national guard units on deployment feel like they’re still back home.
“Hugs For Our Soldiers” and local girl scouts have helped raise donations to send 2,800 boxes of girl scout cookies to members of the 278th Armored Cavalry and 253rd Military Police Company.
On Tuesday evening, volunteers helped pack 1,200 boxes to ship to our local citizen soldiers in Iraq.
The boxes were packed up in Loudon County, but the program serves military families in Blount, Knox, Monroe and Rhea Counties.
"It's really one of our most popular programs with the soldiers,” said Kathy Orcutt, founder of Hugs For Our Soldiers. “There's nothing more that they like, just like the rest of us, than that annual cookie sale."
Orcutt went on to say the first batch of cookies will ship to the soldiers on Wednesday. A second shipment of 1,600 will head overseas in about a month when the 253rd arrives in Iraq.
It is the fourth year the group has worked with the Girl Scouts to ship cookies to the troops.
You can read more about Hugs For Our Soldiers by clicking on the link below.
