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Boxes to Boots is a Connecticut-based charity which sends ‘Care packages’ to deployed service members, and has done so for years. Under its current leader, Kirsten Gauvin, it assembled over 1800 boxes of items like toiletries, snacks – pretty sure everyone here knows what a Care package is. This year they mailed out 1139 boxes to 30 units stationed in over a dozen countries, and paid out $7,600 in postage.<\/p>\n
Sounds like a nice holiday story… but the charity says USPS has returned\u00a0 884 boxes.<\/p>\n
\nBut after mailing them out, the nonprofit got back three-quarters of their care packages (884 to be exact) with the boxes marked return to sender, and the label \u201ctoiletries\u201d circled in red ink. The last quarter of the care packages cleared customs and arrived at their destinations. \u201cThere was no explanation, just the word \u2018toiletries\u2019 circled with a red pencil,\u201d Gauvin said. \u201cNo one can tell us what\u2019s wrong with our boxes.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\nAs of Friday, Gauvin says Boxes to Boots has not received any more information from the United States Postal Service on what was wrong with its labeling; the group has never had shipping issues before. More than 100 boxes that have been returned are still unaccounted for in the mail, and the nonprofit has paid more than $7,600 in shipping costs on the incomplete order.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nNote the numbers, though – 1139 shipped, 884 kicked back – leaving 250 or so shipped and delivered. If they were all marked and labeled the same, as Gauvin says, how did 250 go through? And if labeled as they have been for the last decade, why were the 884 rejected?<\/div>\n\n\n\nGauvin says the group 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.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAccording 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. \u201cUSPS also requires a detailed description of each item in a package on the customs-declaration form: what the item is, what it\u2019s made of, and its purpose \u2014 for example, \u2018men\u2019s cotton shirt\u2019 rather than the general term \u2018clothes,\u2019\u201d USPS spokesperson Amy Gibbs wrote to CT Insider.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nI know it’s Postal’s busiest time of the year, but it sure seems they could stand to spend a half-hour with the charity folks and tell them what the labels have to look like now. According to USPS spox Amy Gibbs:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nAccording 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 \u201cclear, specific description\u201d on the customs form.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nAmy, Lauren – Lauren, Amy. Why don’t you TWO kids quite talking to the press and TALK TO EACH OTHER!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n