Welcome . . . Welcome . . .

To the official website for the 2012 Stockings For Soldiers community project.

This year marks the 9th consecutive year of our community effort to send personalized Holiday greetings to our brave young men and women in uniform serving their Country half-way around the world.

Thanks to the great generosity of Louis Capano & Sons, the owners of the Branmar Plaza shopping center, our "Stocking Store" will be located at the same Branmar Plaza location that we have used for the past six years. Once again, the "Stocking Store" will be in the empty office space that housed the Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate office, to the left of Walgreens/Happy Harry's at Silverside and Marsh Roads in Wilmington, Delaware.  We would like to again thank the wonderful folks at Patterson-Schwartz Realty Company for allowing us to use their vacant office for five years.

Our official kick-off date for this year's project is Monday, October 15th. At 6:30 P.M. that evening, we will open the doors of our "Stocking Store" and begin work on sewing and decorating thousands of Christmas stockings. Over the next seven weeks, we will be personalizing each stocking with the recipient's name, stuffing them with goodies, boxing them and shipping them to troops in the remotest regions of Afghanistan.

Last year, over 500 great volunteers helped us to mail out 1,550 boxes packed with over 10,000 homemade, personalized Christmas Stockings that were filled with over 45,000 pounds of Goodies. We also made and shipped 2,500 polar fleece blankets and 1,000 knitted hats for our troops.

How you can help:

Here are some of the many ways that you can personally contribute to the success of this year's Stockings For Soldiers Project:

Start sewing stockings now . . . many of our volunteers have been sewing and stockpiling stockings since early January. The stocking pattern is available by clicking on the "Stocking Pattern" tab in the left hand column on this page. Be sure to use only colorful, cotton fabric and plain white, red or green felt for the cuff. We request that all the stockings be the same size, so please be sure to measure the stockings to be 15" high by 9" wide. For easy sewing tips, please see our video link to our great new YouTube How-To-Sew a stocking for our project. Thank you.

Knit wool caps. These are valued by our soldiers as warm winter helmet liners in the frigid mountainous regions of Afghanistan. Knitting Instructions are available by clicking on the "Knitting Instructions" tab.

Purchase and donate fabric for stockings and polar fleece for our small blankets. Even if you do not sew, your contribution of fabric is much appreciated and will be used by those who do sew but don't have the funds to buy additional material. You can also cut out the stockings with our pattern.

Collect "gently used" music CD's, paperback books (no romance novels, please) and gently used DVD movies. (no VHS video tapes please).

Please make packets of "Snowman Soup" for our troops. (Hot cocoa in a ziplock bag.) See our link for the "Recipe." This is a great project for young volunteers to do with their families.

Ask your dentist to contribute toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss. You can expedite this by volunteering to bring the donated items to the Stocking Store any time after October 15th.

Arrange for your school, church, synagogue, scout troop, service club and workplace to sponsor a collection campaign for items that we put into the stockings. A flyer with all the details about the project and a list of supplies we need donated is available by clicking on "Project Flyer" to the left.

Arrange for your school, church, synagogue, scout troop, service club and workplace to sponsor a contest to see who can collect the MOST Crew Socks or Chapstick or Ramen Soup, etc.,.

Arrange for your school, church, synagogue, scout troop, service club and workplace to write greeting cards and letters of support to our troops. Please limit the cards written to no more than 100 per person.

Finally, join us (and tell your friends to join us) by coming to the Stocking Store any evening during our working hours (click on "Location/Hours") to help us to make the Holidays brighter for our deployed troops. We will be working in the Stocking Store, starting Monday, October 15th:

Monday through Thursday, Evenings Only, from 6:30 P.M. to 9:00 P.M.

Stop by once, stop by twice or as often as you want . . . and stay as long as you want. But be forewarned: the joy and satisfaction you'll receive from being a Stockings for Soldiers "Elf" is addictive . . . you'll keep coming back for more!

Please HOLD on delivery of any donations until we open on October 15th.

THANK YOU, Everyone. See You All in October.

Judy Travis
Project Coordinator,