The leader of the charity Boxes to Boots is asking President Donald Trump to intervene to save Christmas for troops stationed overseas and unable to return home for the holidays.
Each year, the Connecticut-based nonprofit puts together care packages filled with snacks, toiletries, and other comforts from home for the troops, Fox News reported on Wednesday.
This year, students from New Britain High School helped assemble a record of over 1,800 boxes, Kristen Gauvin, president of Boxes to Boots, told the news outlet.
Of these, the charity shipped over 1,100 overseas, while holding back 700 for Connecticut National Guard troops, whose deployment out of the country got delayed due to the government shutdown earlier this fall.
“Boxes to Boots mailed its packages in mid-November, yet more than 800 of its 1,100 boxes were unexpectedly returned, with more than 100 missing entirely. USPS flagged the packages for insufficient customs descriptions,” Fox News said.
All the boxes returned had the description “toiletries pack” circled on the customs form.
USPS told Fox in a statement, “We are currently investigating why these packages were returned. When customs forms are incomplete or lack the detail needed to meet export compliance requirements, packages may be returned.”
“Every single one of these boxes had my name and phone number on the return information,” Gauvin said in response. “Someone could have took the extra minute to call me and say, ‘Hey, we have a huge problem here. Let me tell you what it is.’”
“Clearly, these boxes are all marked with military addresses. So, I would think people, if anything, would bend over backwards for our troops. This is just disgusting,” she added.
Gauvin also noted that she has heard from four other nonprofits that have had similar problems shipping packages overseas.
“Something is clearly wrong this year,” she said.
“I’m really hoping that President Trump can perform a Christmas miracle for us and get these boxes to our troops for Christmas, because if we send them U.S. postal mail, they’ll never get there,” Gauvin said.
Nathaniel Rosenberg with The Middletown Press reported, “According to a spokesperson for USPS, U.S. Customs likely rejected the boxes because the labels were incomplete and did not provide sufficiently detailed descriptions of what was contained in the packaging.”
“USPS also requires a detailed description of each item in a package on the customs-declaration form: what the item is, what it’s made of, and its purpose — for example, ‘men’s cotton shirt’ rather than the general term ‘clothes,’” USPS representative Amy Gibbs said.
“According to Gibbs, stricter requirements around the labeling of exports have been phased in by Customs and USPS over the past few years, including updates to the policy in April 2023 and September 2025 that now require every item, including small personal shipments, to provide a ‘clear, specific description’ on the customs form,” Rosenberg wrote.
“She provided an example chart of acceptable and unacceptable labeling, contrasting unacceptable labeling ‘gifts,’ ‘medicine,’ with more detailed descriptions ‘one scented candle, remote-controlled toy car, cashmere scarf’ (for gifts) and ‘painkillers (ibuprofen), antiviral spray medication; (for medicine).”
Gauvin told Rosenberg that Boxes to Boots “would be happy to resend the boxes with more detailed labeling if someone would tell them where their labeling fell short, so as not to have a repeat customs snafu.”
She laments the impact that not receiving the care packages will have on the troops. Gauvin recounted “proudly” packing and shipping a care package in response to a request from a Marine feeling lonely on his first tour overseas.
But now it’s sitting in her Connecticut office, having been returned by USPS.
“It’s so disheartening because I will pay that extra money to get that sent, whatever we need to do, but no one’s cooperating with us,” Gauvin said. “I would think everyone would want to be bending over backwards to support our military right now, and that’s just not the feeling I’m getting.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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