DERRY — Letters from home can make their day.
For soldiers serving abroad, receiving a handwritten note or card can bridge the gap between military service in a foreign land and the friends and family waiting for their return.
Students in the Derry Cooperative School District decided to help by writing hundreds of letters to soldiers as part of a campaign hosted by Veterans of Foreign Wars 1617.
The letters are part of a larger project led by MooreMart, an organization that sends hundreds of packages to troops overseas.
Last week, local VFW representatives and Paul Moore of MooreMart visited Derry schools to collect the letters and thank the students.
Jillian Leonard, 11, a fifth-grader at Ernest P. Barka Elementary School, joined her classmates to present the letters.
"Most of the kids wrote letters," Jillian said.
For Moore, seeing the colorful letters with "good luck" or "we miss you" written in a child's handwriting makes the work that much more meaningful.
MooreMart began in 2004 when Moore and his sister, Carole Moore Biggio, decided to send their brother and his fellow soldiers much-needed supplies and other personal items.
The brother-sister team was dubbed "MooreMart" because they were told they carried more supplies than Walmart.
The demand has continued and Moore's operation is still committed to sending packages abroad.
Moore said New Hampshire's last deployment included about 1,200 soldiers, the largest since World War II.
"We've sent a little under 36,000 care packages in six years," he said.
The MooreMart mission has grown to include donations to help underprivileged children in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moore said the students' letters are a great addition to the packages.
"About 6,000 cards and letters go in every time we pack," Moore said. "They always make a difference."
Many of those cards and letters are so treasured soldiers bring them back home.
"That's how the community becomes vested in our troops," Moore said.
MooreMart is collecting supplies for its Fourth of July care package shipment to National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan. Personal care items, playing cards, socks, granola bars, candy and beef jerky are being accepted for the care packages.
"We're trying to make sure troops get more supplies," Moore said.
Visit mooremart.org.
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