Operation Shoebox is a big volunteer organization that meets on Mondays at Lake Miona. They actually take up the whole rec center, with different rooms used for several jobs. They are always raising funds to pay for the postage of goods that are sent overseas to deployed servicemen and women, especially around the holidays. Here's their website:
Operation Shoebox
Also here's an article quoted from The Villages Homeowners Association:
"Operation Shoebox Volunteer Organization of the Year
By Staff
Operations Shoebox Volunteer Organization of the Year
With thousands of Villagers contributing and volunteering in Operation Shoebox to provide support and comfort to American servicemen and women serving throughout the world in defense of freedom, The Villages Chapter of Operation Shoebox was selected as VHA’s 2010 Service Organization of the Year.
Hundreds of Workers Every Monday
Three to five hundred Villagers fill Lake Miona Regional Recreation Center every Monday to let the troops know their service and sacrifice is appreciated back home. Cutters and sewers make the ditty bags and Christmas stockings. Clippers, snippers and writers prepare the comics, articles, notes, letters and personal mementoes. Workers fill the bins along assembly lines with toys, snacks, toiletries, and personal gifts. Assembly line workers fill the finished ditty bags with goodies ready to be shipped to fleet post offices worldwide.
$200,000 Postage and Rising
Postal charges alone are about $200,000 per year. At Christmastime, the 26,000 plus Christmas Stockings with gifts and goodies alone cost about $60,000. The postage is cover with generous donations from individual Villagers, Villages’ clubs and organizations, Operation Shoebox fund raising events, local merchants and businessmen. The largest single contributor over the past few years has been Bill O’Reilly, who has given thousands of items like books and mp3 players, and tens of thousands of dollars toward expenses.
Pride and Patriotism
For its special contribution in support of our friends and relatives serving the military, and building a well-earned sense of pride and patriotism among Villagers, the VHA salutes Operation Shoebox as the 2010 Volunteer Organization of the Year!
The Villages Operation Shoebox Chair Sandy DeChristofaro (r) and Co-Chair Anne LaChance (l) are frequently joined by Operations Shoebox Founder Mary Harper supporting the hundreds of Operation Shoebox volunteers every Monday at Lake Miona Regional Recreation Center, who send tens of thousands of packages to America’s servicemen and women around the world each year.
Operation Shoebox of The Villages’ Anne LaChance of the Village of Sunset Ridge accepts VHA’s 2010 Volunteer Organization of the Year on behalf of the thousands of Villagers who support Operation Shoebox throughout the year."