Operation Homefront is one of a select few charities privileged to operate under a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) presented by the Department of Defense.
Read the MOU

Operation Homefront provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind, and to wounded warriors when they return home. A nonprofit 501(c)3 founded after September 11, Operation Homefront leads more than 4,000 volunteers in 31 chapters nationwide. Since its inception, Operation Homefront has provided critical assistance to more than 45,000 military families in need.

How We Help - Operation Homefront provides aid to families struggling not only with emergencies, but also the problems of everyday life. Existing programs include:

• Emergency Aid - Food, baby care items, vehicle donation and repair.
• Computer Program - Allows children and spouses to stay in touch with their loved one.
• Financial Assistance Program - Crises such as illness, homelessness and death.
• Furniture Program - Donated household and baby furniture; working order appliances.
• Moving - Providing physical labor for families when a service member is deployed.
• Social Outreach - Adopt-a-family, Thanksgiving/holiday baskets, back-to-school supplies.

Achievements - Some of our most outstanding accomplishments are:

• More than 5 million dollars provided to military families in crises.
• An excess of 20,000 care packages delivered to soldiers abroad with an additional 2,000 packages delivered to military families at home.
• Over 1,500 families received assistance with vehicle donation or repair.
• More than $450,000 in food relief has been received by destitute families.
• More than 8,000 backpacks have been delivered to military children headed back to school.
• With only 11 percent overhead, 89 percent of every dollar raised directly supports those in need.

Operation Homefront also operates CinCHouse.com, the largest informational resource and Internet-based community for military families.  Operation Homefront has also launched eCarePackage.org, the online care package service that allows citizens to show their support for our deployed troops and their families.

History
The history of Operation Homefront starts with CinCHouse.com. In 1999, Meredith Leyva was an executive for a large Washington, DC-public relations firm. When she learned the Navy had plans to deploy her husband or relocate their family, Meredith sought solace by creating a Web site to chat with fellow military spouses and female service members about military lifestyle issues and post information. Without advertising or promotion, that site garnered 40,000 unique visitors per month within four months of existence.

On September 11, 2001, Meredith and her husband were stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, where they watched as the first massive waves of deployments went to Afghanistan. While the fighting forces were prepared, it was clear the family support system had fallen apart when it was most needed. Thus, CinCHouse.com partnered with local San Diego media and veterans to create Operation Homefront, originally a project providing an outlet for citizens to show their support for the troops in ways that were most needed ─ helping the families they left behind. The military wives on CinCHouse.com became the key source for volunteers for Operation Homefront, but CinCHouse.com played another critical role: Getting the word out to military families in need. By the end of its first year, Operation Homefront was serving 10 percent of the military population in Southern California with a dedicated team of staff and volunteers. On the East Coast, Amy Palmer, a military spouse and disabled Air Force veteran, launched a similar nonprofit organization, the Armed Forces Foundation, with a similar mission and success rate in four major military communities. Amy merged her organization and three chapters into Operation Homefront and became executive vice president of Operations, and assuming responsibility for all charitable activities nationally and with local chapters. Soon civilians located in other military communities across the nation contacted us to launch Operation Homefront chapters. Today Operation Homefront boasts 31 chapters serving 34 states nationwide and serves as the parent organization of CinCHouse.com.

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