New Jersey nonprofit may stop sending care packages to troops as prices rise, donations drop
From boxes of Tastykakes to Girl Scout Cookies and toiletries, Dave Silver has been helping military members deployed overseas have a little taste of home for years.
"It's basically been my paradigm of how I live and how I breathe every day," said Silver, who founded Operation Yellow Ribbon in 2012.
Andrew Einstein, a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, received a care package from the charity when he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It meant everything," Einstein said. "You have hard days, you have easy days, and the hard days are hard to shake, and you open those care packages and you forget about what happened even five minutes before."
Silver and other volunteers send more than 1,500 care packages a year, but it pains him to comprehend that morale boost may soon come to an end.
"I feel like I'm letting the troops down, it's just not sustainable of what we do and the level we do it," Silver said.
Silver told CBS News Philadelphia Operation Yellow Ribbon has seen a sharp decline in donations from the community and corporate sponsors since the pandemic. Add on top of that, the rising cost of postage, groceries and rent for the warehouse Silver operates out of in Mount Laurel.
"We're just at the point where we can no longer fundraise and spend the way we're used to doing it, and it's time," he said.
Silver says the non-profit will continue to hold surprise celebrations and welcome home South Jersey service members, and he's still hopeful the operation's full mission will be able to continue.
"If someone loves what we do so much and they want to sponsor us to the point of opening up their hearts and their checkbooks were open to it, but as of now we are out of time and out of money to keep going," said Silver, who added the lease on the warehouse is up at the end of May.
Until then, he will keep packing and shipping as many packages as he can.