Parcels to put a smile on soldiers’ faces
The mum of a squaddie from Strathyre has been hard at work preparing Christmas parcels for solders stationed away from home this Christmas.
Karen Trainor has been accepting donations of goods which she will pack in special Christmas boxes and dispatched to armed service personnel over the festive period.
Packages containing toiletries, tasty treats and special Christmas cards written by school pupils are to be sent to the soldiers.
Karen’s own son, Gary McKenzie, 23, is serving with the Royal Logistic Corps.
Karen has been packaging up the parcels as part of a national project called the Smile Club – set up to boost the morale of soldiers at Christmas.
Last weekend she used the village hall to set up and weigh the boxes with the help of Post Office workers.
She said:“I used to send Gary parcels when he was deployed. Last year I also made up and sent 185 boxes for others serving in the forces and this year I’ll send out more than 300.”
She has already packaged and sent 120 of this year’s boxes for grateful squaddies.
“There’s a lot of ex-armed service people who live in the area and obviously with Gary serving it’s just something that I wanted to do,” added Karen.
“We asked the children from Strathyre Primary to write Christmas cards to the soldiers as I thought that would be a nice gesture. I actually read over some of the cards and it brought me to tears because it obviously hits close to home for me.”