"Let's Say Thanks" (gone, but not forgotten)

What do you do when you want to be creative, but have no way to get photos from your camera onto your blog? You improvise! You get creative! You find a way to let your loyal followers, viewers, readers, and friends know they are not forgotten. You also find a way to enter this week's CED challenge. So, let's see what kind of trouble I can get into art I can conjure up today.

On January 2 of this year, I posted one of my goals for 2011 and how well I did. My 2011 resolution is in blue, my actual accomplishment in black.

"4. Continue visiting the Xerox site (link on my sidebar under "Eye candy and Freebies") at least once a week, and sending postcard support to our troops until they are safely home out of harm's way. See this post for the specifics.

This is one thing I continued through September of this year. After that, I knew troops would be coming home from Iraq, so I stopped visiting the site."

So yesterday I decided to click on a few links on my sidebars (because after all, as Seth Apter pointed out in a post on Create Mixed Media, this is VALUABLE REAL ESTATE that visitors seldom take time to view),


and decided to visit the Xerox postcard site before I said good-bye to the link.


That's when I learned (as copied and quoted from the Let's Say Thanks web site)

"Thank you for your support of Xerox's Let's Say Thanks program.

We are no longer accepting cards through the website.

Let's Say Thanks began more than five years ago as a public way to say "thank you" to the men and women serving our country. Since then, more than 30 million people have visited the website to share their appreciation with our troops through cards featuring children’s artwork from across the country."

The site still offers ways you (and you and you, my dear readers) can help the troops. Once again, quoting the Xerox site:

". . .we've decided to shift the focus of the program to what the troops need most: donations. We will continue to support local cards drives and contests, and we encourage you to continue your support by sending mail, toiletry items or donations via www.give2thetroops.org."

Here is a copy of the first postcard I ever sent to an anonymous armed forces member back on Nov. 28, 2009. And here is what I wrote about the postcard:

"The one I chose first is this one created by a young man named Joshua, who lives in IL and is age 11. Before you think I stole the design off their web site, that is not the case. You may download each photo with the click of a button that is located below the "send" button."

It's now time to say good-bye to the Xerox link, but hopefully not the good deeds and ways we can help our troops. Statistically, returning service people active duty personnel and veterans suffer more emotional, mental, homelessness, divorce, and substance abuse problems than the general population. That is so unfair in a country that asked them to serve, then does nothing for them when they return home.




I'm sharing this on CED (after all, this is first and foremost an art blog), hoping this is a wake-up call to find ways to reach out to our returning troops, while creating a post I gleaned from my sidebar and various links. How do you feel about your sidebar? Is it taking up valuable real estate, or providing worthwhile information and links?