I can definitely give you advice!!! As we mention on the website, you basically need 3 things to have a coupon project: Coupons, an address to send them to, and the postage money.
So I'll break it down for you:
Coupons:
I would suggest starting out with the girls in your troop and their families. Make up a flyer for all the girls to hand out to their family members, friends, relatives and neighbors letting them know what you'll be doing and why. Chances are you won't get alot at first, but starting off slow will help you to get a routine going before you start getting slammed with coupon donations.
You'll get coupons that are already cut, but probably a good percent of the coupons will still be in full inserts, but you have can use the girls for their cutting skills and maybe even their sorting skills, depending on their age. Coupons should be sorted into a few categories (Food, Health/Beauty, Non-Food, Baby and Pets)
Our organization counts the face values, just so we have an impressive dollar amount to keep the momentum going for our contributors, but it's not necessary.
An Address:
As a hcw member and a couponer, you already have one advantage on finding a person who will be willing to receive coupons from your group. Follow the link in my signature and make contact with one of the HCW members listed. Or you can do as the website suggests, and inquire within your local community and find out if there's anyone with ties to your town/city that is stationed overseas. If there is, then contact that person and tell them about the project to see if they would be willing to be your contact person.
and finally postage money.
Depending on how big of a response you get will determine how big of a envelope/box you'll need to mail them. There's several flat-rate mailers and boxes available at the post office, but you can also just use regular envelopes or manilla envelopes if you don't have enough coupons to fill the others. Remember it's the same prices as you would pay to mail the package to someone here in the U.S..
Raising the money to be used for the donations is probably going to be your biggest concern, but it can definitely be done. Maybe do a bottle drive and earmark the money for your postage fund or put together a raffle or ask outright for donations, really anything that will bring in some money. You might even want to check with any mililtary organization in the area (American Legion, VFW, Marine Corps League, etc) or a service organization (Lions Club, Kiwanis, Rotary, etc) to see if they would help co-sponsor you and have them cover the postage for your project. Offer to do all the work in exchange for them paying all the postage. Really the means are endless, you just have to go after it.
That's it in a nutshell.
Once you have your routine going, then you can expand to see about getting more coupons brought in by dropping off information at businesses (they might want to put a collection box in their employee lounge) or see if the library would put out a collection box, churches, senior centers, etc. Your local radio station or newspaper might work with you by running a PSA to help promote the project.
And once you're up, please add your group to the directory at
www.couponstotroops.com
Hopefully that will give enough information to get you started, but please feel free to pm me anytime if you need any help getting going.