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| LIFE IN SOLERA | JANUARY 2025 | 37 I selected this photo of an old powerful, patriotic steam engine prowling through the night at full speed, as the way our Christmas card writing project went. Let me digress back several years to when we first started sending hand written Christmas cards. Some of you may have been writing cards in those earliest days. The first couple of years our card count was in the impressive 300 card range. Now we don't send single cards to each individual soldier. We send a packet to one of our contacts and he or she passes them out to their people. Then there were a couple of years that it went to the 400s. This was when a lady I knew, who lived in the Beaumont area, moved to northern Idaho. She offered to send a few cards, written my her church group. As our card count kept increasing each year, so did the Idaho church group's cards go up. This year they sent us 301 cards. As word was getting out about what we were doing, we began receiving a few written cards from outside of Solera, even from school teachers. Let me say, there is nothing that warms a service member's heart more than getting a card or letter from a child. Our written card count had gone up to about 600 for a couple of years. Then last year we sent packets of cards to 26 different groups. The card count was an unbelievable 1,416 hand written cards. The closer to Christmas it gets, the more mail our postal system has to handle, and military system really gets bogged down. Last year we had three units, that I know of, that didn't receive their cards until after Christmas. This year we just started the process earlier. We visited many clubs and groups and passed out every box or bundle of blank Christmas cards that we had been collecting all year. We normally support 10-15 groups on a regular basis. At the moment, it is 12 units, but I have contact information on many more. Last year it was the 26 groups that we sent cards to. This year we smashed last year's record by sending out 2,335 cards to 37 units. You did this. Saying THANK YOU, just doesn't seem enough. Thank you for caring. ~ Jesse Donardt SUPPORT OUR TROOPS VETERAN ASSISTANCE FLAG BRIGADE Billy (Mitch) Mitchell is a resident and Veteran who has voluntarily worked with individuals and the Veterans Administration to assist Veterans in obtaining benefits. If you are a Veteran and want to know which benefits you may be eligible for, contact Mitch at (951) 797-0800. The Flags were raised in November for Veterans Day, 11/11/2024, and in December on 12/6/24 for Pearl Harbor Day. They came down Monday, 12/11/24. Thank you to those few dedicated resident volunteers who are up "at the crack of dawn" on these special days to put up and take down our flags. Contact for the Flag Brigade – Nick Gercis, nick.gercis@gmail.com. To all veterans, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!