‘Scents for Soldiers’ is a way to contact veterans | Strand Notebook

Every year, and sometimes more than once a year, a post circulates over Facebook encouraging people to send a card to a solder in one of our military hospitals.

We are told to address it to “Any Soldier.” Many people send them, but to no avail. Unless that card is addressed to a certain soldier by name, it is going nowhere. It makes perfect senses to me that the military hospitals can’t allow soldiers to receive cards from people they don’t know. The card’s message could be nice or it could be hateful. Those wounded men and women have probably already been a target, and a lot of dangerous things can be put inside a sealed envelope.

I don’t know all the reasons military hospitals such as Walter Reed won’t allow cards sent to “Any Soldier,” but the last I heard, they will not accept those cards, and especially will not distribute them to a wounded, injured or ill soldier.

There are many ways that you can help cheer up an active military person who is wounded, injured or ill. Many of them spent a great amount of time in those hospitals.

Christina Shealy may not have dreamed of how big Scents for Soldier would grow when she made her first visit to Walter Reed to visit a friend who had been shot in the head in Afghanistan. When she went into a store and decided to take scented candles to him, Scents for Soldiers was born. The number of candles grew and was delivered to other soldiers, and then she started delivering other things that smell good, such as pumpkin pies, and then added other items that the soldiers need such as relaxing CDs, battery operated neck massagers and too many more items to name.

Growing and growing with support, Scents for Soldiers has been bringing wounded, ill and injured active military men and women to the beach for fun, rest and relaxation for 13 years, and just returned a group of 50 to Walter Reed. .

If you would like to contribute to Scents for Soldier, there is a GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/ovntew.

If you would like be learn more about Scents for Soldiers and how you can help. Visit www.scents4soldiers.org.

This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 1:51 PM with the headline "‘Scents for Soldiers’ is a way to contact veterans | Strand Notebook."