Deadlines & Themes


Deadlines are important to follow – as we need to get the cards out in time to be written on and mailed home in time for holidays. General cards can be sent anytime.

Contacts request a large (325+ cards) or medium box (150+), and each box has a selection of the coming holiday as well as all our standard themes – thinking of you, love, missing you, birthday, and thank you.

Holiday cards start to ship out 8-10 weeks before the date to allow plenty of time to get to remote locations and back home in time for the holiday itself. We appreciate your help in getting the cards to our shippers well in advance of deadlines so we can reach the remote units early!

A note about needs for AnyHero mail:

At Christmastime, we get a LOT of season-specific mail, and that’s fine – but please, for other times of year, make hero mail GENERIC; meaning no “Happy Valentines Day, Hero” or “Happy Easter, Hero” type of mail. Our shippers have tons of sorting to do with the cards, and keeping track of which mail has to take precedence over other letters that came in earlier is a monumental task. Mail that can be sent anytime is absolutely best. Thanks! 

 

2013 Deadlines

The downlodable calendar is  updated for 2013. Want a monthly calendar page? Visit HERE.

  • Dec 31 – Valentines
  • Jan 10 – winter
  • Jan 31 – St Patricks
  • Feb 7 – Easter
  • March 31 – Mother’s Day, Graduation, spring
  • April 30 – Father’s Day
  • May 31 – Independence Day
  • Aug 31 – Halloween
  • Sept 30 – Thanksgiving
  • Oct 10 – General Fall
  • Oct 15 – aim for early delivery of your holiday cards – it’s helpful!
  • Oct 31 – Christmas
  • Nov 30 – AnyHero Christmas
  • Dec 31 – Valentines
*Beating any holiday deadlines by a couple weeks is appreciated, especially when sending multiples of a design (max 20).

Card themes

OWH sends cards for major holidays only, and in English only. That’s because many units are small enough that the likelihood of someone in need of a very specific ethnic or religious theme is small, and we want to send what they can use most. We always include general, blank, thinking of you cards, and heroes can use those for any occasions we do not include. (If we do get a request for Hispanic sentiments or Jewish holidays, we put out a request for those. Otherwise keep to the lists provided.)
Desired themes:
  • Birthday
  • Love
  • Thank you
  • Missing you
  • Thinking of you
  • Blank (no sentiment)

Undesired themes:

  • Wish you were here
  • Party invitations
  • Baby/bridal announcement
  • To mommy/daddy
  • Retirement, other rare themes
  • Get well/sympathy
  • Blank AnyHero cards (write your own note in them, we don’t need blanks)


4 Comments

  1. Kathy H
    May 18, 2012

    I’ve tried several times to download the deadline calendar but the red download bar is not clickable.

  2. Lois B
    May 19, 2012

    It doesn’t appear to be clickable for me either.

  3. Linda M
    May 21, 2012

    worked for me!