Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania's Gift of Caring program gives customers the opportunity to donate packages of cookies through Digital Cookie. GSHPA is honored to announce our outstanding cookie sellers already exceeded our initial goal of 35,000 packages donated to the Gift of Caring campaign! Therefore, we increased our council goal to 70,000 packages by April 11^th, which means we are 55% to our goal.

All of those tasty cookies then have to go somewhere! This year, GSHPA is proud to be partnering with Operation Gratitude for the Gift of Caring Program. Who is Operation Gratitude you might ask? What is their mission? Well, we are happy you asked! 

Operation Gratitude is an organization that "sends 300,000+ individually addressed Care Packages to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen deployed overseas, to their children left behind, and to First Responders, New Recruits, Veterans, Wounded Heroes, and their Care Givers." The heart of Operation Gratitude's mission is creating bonds between Americans and those who serve our country through various channels of outreach. 

Our friends at Operation Gratitude will be joining the Product Program Team on March 9^th to hold a  Letter Writing event. These letters will accompany the Girl Scout Cookie donations!

Operation Gratitude strives to include several personal letters of thanks and gratitude in every Care Package we send. We receive many thank you emails from the Service Member and Frontline Responder Recipients stating that the letters are the most cherished item in their package. Participants are encouraged to write a few letters during the program and to include their email address (or the email address of a parent) as we often have package recipients reach out to express how much their letters mean to them!