Volunteer of the Year: Germaine Broussard

Germaine Broussard won the Volunteer of the Year award for her untiring devotion to supporting American troops serving overseas.

A McLean, Va.-based adviser with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, Ms. Broussard is the founder of TroopTreats.com, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sending care packages and handwritten letters to more than 20,000 members of the armed forces a year.

In 2003, she began simply by baking cookies for a few troops. Since then, she has baked and mailed more than 100,000 cookies, earning her the nickname The Cookie Lady.

With her knack for motivating and inspiring others, her efforts snowballed to include hundreds of volunteers scattered across the U.S. who stuff baggies, collect supplies, write letters or lift morale in other ways, such as signing on as Battle Buddies. In that program, Ms. Broussard gives a little toy bear with a camouflage uniform to a volunteer and a matching Battle Buddy to a soldier overseas.

“There’s constant contact between the buddies — letters, photos of the bears in different locations. The whole point is, it’s something totally different than what [the troops] are seeing around them,” Ms. Broussard said.

TroopTreats is preparing 13,000 care packages for three upcoming projects: USA Weekend magazine’s National Make a Difference Day on Oct. 22, the Army’s Operation Santa’s Little Helpers during Christmas season and Martin Luther King Day of Service on Jan. 12.

The $20,000 award from the Invest in Others Charitable Foundation will go far in covering her costs, which are considerable. Postage alone runs thousands of dollars per year.

“All of the costs of supplies and postage are paid by TroopTreats,” Ms. Broussard said. “When they have exceeded the budget — but not the need — I have paid for them out of my pocket.”

The project is her passion.

“My main goal is to bring a smile, a chance for the troops to feel like kids again,” she said.

But there’s also a serious side to it.

“I started TroopTreats.com to remember our armed forces in harm’s way — not just during the holidays but every day,” she said. “I hope that this recognition will remind everyone that troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world are not just numbers, they are real people.

“I have been asked several times what I get out of this, and I tell people that to do something for someone who can do nothing for you is the ultimate satisfaction.”