Our annual paracord gratitude project is back for the winter of 2023-2024! We have had service members and first responders protect us for so long and now it should be our turn to appreciate and support them. We will be crafting lanyards and sending the finished ones to our partner, Operation Gratitude. We know that all of you wonderful volunteers can finish the job!
What is a paracord Lanyard? What is it used for?
When you craft a paracord lanyard, you are providing a service member or first responder with a tangible and lasting expression of your gratitude and a symbol of the appreciation of grateful Americans everywhere. When your lanyards arrive at Operation Gratitude’s facility, we will attach a carabiner that can be clipped onto almost anything to keep it within reach should an emergency arise. The uses of a lanyard could be but not limited to:
Hang an IV bag from a tree.
Secure camouflage nets to trees or vehicles.
Build a makeshift shelter.
Extend a security strap or rope to reach and haul heavy objects.
Create a harness to extract an injured person from a bad location.
Make a sling or splint.
(Description attributed to Operation Gratitude)
Lanyard materials and tools:
Paracord string (Thickness: 550 lb. weight; Length: 5 ft per paracord)
Lighter to seal paracord ends
Who is administrating the project? Where will the Lanyards go to?
CHEER is partnering with Operation Gratitude to administrate this project. CHEER is responsible with purchasing materials, gathering volunteers, distributing materials and finally collecting the crafted lanyards. The final products are sent to Operation Gratitude by our representative in a given day and Operation Gratitude would deliver them to appreciation to our Military and first responders. Thus, we rely on all volunteers to respect our key dates and finish project on time.
Key dates to note about the project:
MilestoneDateEarly Registration End November 28th 2023Material Pickup Dates November 28th to December 2nd 2023Lanyard Collection Dates December 28th 2023 to January 4th 2024Lanyard to Operation Gratitude January 6th 2024
Why we request donation? And what would be the donation money used for?
You might notice that there’s a request in the google registration form asking for $0.25/lanyard. The proceed we collected would be used dedicated to cover the material cost of our Lanyards. CHEER is a local charity group who rely on supports from the community. Members of CHEER would volunteer their efforts to administrate the process, while we still need supports to cover the material cost. Thus, the rate of lanyard might be floating depending on the resources we could find online. We appreciate any donation and your participation with our project.
Are there teaching sessions or online instructions available?
Yes, of course. Operation Gratitude has put up a detail instruction on YouTube. We highly recommend all our volunteers to watch this video and learn at home. Once you master the skill, it would be easy to follow through and complete all lanyards within reasonable time. Please see the link below for instruction:
At the same time, we understand the stress of self-learning. Thus, teaching sessions will be administrated through Zoom meetings at a later time, where our project coordinators would take questions 1 on 1 to tutor. We strongly recommend all volunteers to watch the YouTube video before joining the Zoom meeting so that we could cover the questions more efficiently!
What would be awarded as the Lanyard project accomplished?
CHEER recognize your efforts and thank you for joining our project. We offer 2 hours per 10 Lanyards as our gratitude to your participation. The more the cheerier!
Written by:
Ning and Rena
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