Exchange a Hand Printed Flag with Troops Abroad

This year a class of third-graders in a suburban Houston public school celebrated Memorial Day with a special project. They displayed a banner of an American flag painted with their hand prints and wrote essays on what the American flag and Memorial Day mean to them. That flag banner has been packed up along with their essays and another flag banner without hand prints, to be sent to US troops in Iraq. The soldiers there will be asked to cover their palms with waterbase white paint and place their hand prints all over the second flag and fly it over their post. That flag will then be returned to the Texas third-graders to hang in their classroom.

Think of it! The flag bearing the actual hand prints of children back home will be hung someplace where the soldiers can see it every day, say in their mess hall. Those hand prints will be a daily reminder of why they're there, what they are fighting for. Meanwhile, in the Texas classroom, those children will have a personal connection to troops serving abroad. Having put their own paint-covered hands to a flag, the students will recognize that the soldiers somewhere far away, protecting them are real people.

YOU CAN PARTICIPATE

If you would like to exchange a flag with troops abroad, email One Hand Deserves Another - banners(at)dcworx.com and inquire about a Troop Support Flag Exchange. The fee includes costs only for material and shipping - sending the first flag to you, both flags to an APO address, and the final flag to you. If you already have contact with a soldier abroad, you can make your exchange with his/her outfit. Or One Hand Deserves Another can select a contact for you. Anyone can hand print a flag for the troops... a school, a church, a club, a bowling team. It should be someone that can display the return flag with pride. Hand printing a flag for the troops would be a great activity for your July 4th celebrations.

A Troop Support Flag Kit consists of two US flag banners. These are NOT purchased US flags, but painted banners - an artist's representations of the flag. This pair of flag banners is exchanged between an entity in the US and military personnel serving "over there," whether in Europe, Asia, or somewhere else in the Americas.

PROCESS

The first flag is hand printed by the entity/group in the US.
This flag is returned to One Hand Deserves Another to be finished with final details and top coat.
Personal messages, essays, photos can be included.
Both flags are sent to the troops, usually in an APO box.
Their flag with hand prints from home is presented to the military personnel "over there" as a gift from the US entity.
The second flag is hand printed by military personnel there.
The second flag is returned to One Hand Deserves Another to be finished with final details and spattered top coat.
The US flag with hand prints of military personnel serving overseas is presented to the entity/group in the US.

That's all there is to it. The paint washes right off your hands, but the hand print will stay, showing that you literally reached out to touch someone far away.