Treat the Troops - Southern Style

Treat The Troops Southern Style (TTT Southern Style, #TTTSouthernStyle) is the Cumming, Georgia chapter of www.TreatTheTroops.org. The first official cooking packing under the TTT Southern Style name was held at VFW Post 9143 on August 16, 2012. That evening, 32 large flat rate USPS boxes were filled with home baked cookies, comfort foods (granola bars, pop tarts, water flavorings, beef jerky, etc.), candy, travel size toiletries, and letters of appreciation written by the TTT-SS volunteers to the deployed military personnel. The next morning, a total of 2,736 home baked cookies, nestled among all of the other goodies in the boxes, were mailed and on their way overseas to the troops!

In 2012, TTT Southern Style had two additional cookie packings – October and December. Beginning in 2013, the TTT-SS chapter began to send cookie shipments to the deployed troops five times a year – February, April, June, September, and November!! It’s no surprise that annually, our holiday packing each November has been our largest mailing.

To date (April 2017), TTT Southern Style volunteers, or Crumbs, have mailed 5,332 large flat rate USPS boxes filled with 632,786 cookies and thousands of pounds of other comfort food items and of course letters of appreciation!!! Some Crumbs bake cookies, some purchase snack items, some furnish travel-size toiletries, some pack, some write letters/notes/cards, some donate postage, and some do all of the above. In addition to sending cookies to the troops, some TTT Southern Style Crumbs donate dog biscuits and chew toys for the K-9 service animals.

It takes extensive preparation and coordination to send these cookie care packages to the troops overseas. Requests for cookies are made directly to the Cookie Lady, Jeanette Cram, www.treatthetroops.org/cookie-lady/ who forwards the requests to TTT chapters across the United States. When TTT Southern Style receives a request, address labels as well as U.S. Custom forms must be filled out for each box mailed. Some Crumbs help with this administrative work, too.

The cookie packing dates for 2017 are set. We will be packing at the VFW Post 9143 on June 29, September 14, and November 9, 2017.