Entrepreneurs Pack It In : Then They Ship It Out, as Care Packages for Service Personnel in Mideast

NEWPORT BEACH —  After completing a small-business class at Orange Coast College last spring, Sharon Corzine and Robin Ellis decided they had hit upon a great idea for a new enterprise: holiday care packages for college students far from home.

Then, in early August, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein dispatched his troops to Kuwait. And the marketing strategy for Corzine and Ellis’ company did an about-face.

Why not market care packages filled with goodies from home to U.S. military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia, they thought. The fledgling entrepreneurs began marketing their packages at Orange County military installations and sending mail order lists to homes in the county.

The orders, they say, are beginning to pour in.

“We set up the company at the right time and at the right place,” said Corzine, co-owner of Care Packages in Newport Beach.

Although Corzine and Ellis have stuck with their original idea of providing gift packages for families of students at far-away colleges and universities, their company got a boost from the international crisis that began when Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait on Aug. 2.

“A lot of the families were worried, and they started sending boxes to their husbands and loved ones in American military camps,” Corzine said.

Initially, sending packages to U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia was problematic. The Pentagon originally set a limit of 12 ounces for packages sent to the Middle East. But the regulations were changed last month, allowing packages of up to 70 pounds.

The extra weight was necessary for customers who wanted to send larger packages to particular groups of soldiers, such as a number of Orange County residents who wanted orders sent to troops from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The packages, Ellis said, are “like a donation for some people; it’s their way of showing support for our servicemen.”

Since August, Care Packages has received more than 100 orders and has shipped out dozens of packages. The orders are coming in so quickly that the two women say they’ve been working seven days a week to fill them.

“With the holiday season just starting, we’ll be working extra hard,” Corzine said.

Most of the packages come in simple brown boxes measuring 18 by 18 by 6 inches. But the goodies inside vary with the occasion.

For example, a Halloween box called “Autumn Harvest” includes apple butter, cheese crackers, walnut cookies, Indian corn and a miniature pumpkin. A Christmas package, “Nutcracker Sweet,” contains a chocolate toy soldier, chocolate eclairs, mulling spices, a mint-filled drum and cinnamon sticks.

The boxes range in price from $25 for the simplest package to $100 for an extra large “Christmas Elegance” box that includes such treats as smoked salmon, gourmet honeys, sparkling cider and holiday plates and napkins.

“What we’re offering is convenience for the sender because we pack and send the boxes for them,” Ellis said. “All they have to do is pick from our catalogue.”

For the military men or women receiving the packages, the hardest part may be keeping the goodies out of the hands of other homesick soldiers.