2006 Totals:
A special thanks for all the support and donations this year. This has been a great year for Operation from the Heart!
We have shipped over 2000 lbs directly to the Troops this year (2147 lbs). 100% of that is donations by some great people and organizations.
This year we expanded and included a new “Agents” program which allowed us to reach out to more communities and open our doors to more and more people. I am Thankful for those agents that have joined us this year and we are blessed to have some really great people involved with us.
Our website is becoming more active and our forums are starting to pick up more. All of our donations are acknowledged there and every shipment is documented there with details of who it was shipped to and when. So if you donated anything you should have a personal thank you on the “recognition” threads.
Since we were awarded our 501©3 non profit status , we have been swamped with paperwork (IRS forms and documents and receipts etc) I expect this year to bring more and more donations and documentation. It is becoming a second fulltime job for me (that’s a good thing I guess). We are figuring this thing out and learning more and more each day. We will be having more fund raising this year to help off set our shipping costs (my own shipping expense was over $600 in December).
We plan on expanding and updating our logo this year and website. We will also be offering direct sales of “OpFTH Gear” (t-shirts and hats etc) soon as “Promotional items”. You can still buy our stuff on café’ press if you want to show your support and get us some exposure in the mean time.
We have started to expand our grasp to local schools and churches around us and have spoke at “Support our Troops” events. It has opened up our organization to more then the cigar communities that we started out with and is a huge step for us. We have had mentions in local news papers, radio shows and other website now. Feel free to promote us on your other forums and websites (myspace). We have a myspace account now with great tributes and photos too. Check it out at www.myspace.com/opfth
Thank you all for your support in 2006!
Please continue your generosity in 2007. We need it more then ever now.
Bill Schmidt
“Smitty”
www.opfth.com
www.myspace.com/opfth