Mighty Morale in a Meaningful Box
When she was deployed as a photojournalist for the Navy in the Mediterranean, Chelsea almost received an intact care package of treats from her mother…but only almost.
By the time it made it to its destination, the box of goodies had suffered considerably from its journey. As it turns out, sending care packages to loved ones deployed outside the U.S. can be messy business. What Chelsea’s mom needed was some source to simplify the often-stressful process of boxing and posting the things she wanted to send, but she was on her own.
Once Chelsea realized there was no such thing, she says, “I was totally blown away.” That was in 2013, and that was when she decided to create Troopster.
When she returned home to the family farm in Kentucky, she got to work on her new goal: a website that enabled people to send meaningful care packages to troops stationed around the world with little more than a few clicks.
Six months of researching on lunch breaks and growing a thirty-page handwritten document got her started, but it took a few nudges to bring her dream to life.
“I had no idea what it would take,” says Chelsea, but the coincidental opportunity of a special discount on business cards got the ball rolling. Ordering the cards meant needing a live website, which meant checking off numerous boxes on her startup list.
“I was too afraid to really start, and then I ended up falling into it.” While she was home for Thanksgiving, her mom gave her the last push she needed to go for it, and she did.
“I was so happy that I did that.”
Until recently, Chelsea has relied primarily on word of mouth and social media to cultivate a following, but business is starting to boom. Troopster has both a for-profit and non-profit side, and people are eager for both.
Volunteers have been a crucial source, arriving by the hundreds for “pack parties” each month to help pack boxes purchased as donations for troops without families, and because her location is a hot-spot for the military and their families, she never needs to beg for help. “I am so blessed,” she says.
As far as managing the profitable part of Troopster, the Navy veteran has just hired her first employee, and her plan doesn’t stop here.
Despite being someone who considers herself fairly go-with-the-flow, Chelsea knows how to set her priorities and fight for what matters.
“I am not going to be pushed over when it counts,” she says, and Troopster counts.
Though her background is in design, and she has the most fun being her own editor in the design process, the bigger picture of Troopster’s fate weighs heavily on her shoulders. Learning how to delegate has been a difficult but necessary process, because her dream isn’t small: Chelsea wants Troopster to be a household name for military families. As a franchise with a location in every major U.S. city, Troopster would be able to give the family and friends of deployed soldiers a source of support, allowing them to encourage our country’s troops from afar.
After all, everything Chelsea’s done with Troopster has been with the troops in mind. Troopster boxes arrive with the creeds from every branch of armed forces, including the Coast Guard, emblazoned on them as a reminder of who they’re for and what that stands for.
A Troopster pamphlet in a paper packet for a family of a recently deployed new recruit might seem small, but the implication that no one needs to feel alone when facing such so much uncertainty is enormous. A box of cookies, arriving intact to thanks to corrugated boxes, can have a big impact on someone serving miles away, just as knowing their son or daughter is enjoying a taste of home can be a big comfort to those parents eagerly awaiting his or her return.
When things go wrong and problems crop up, Chelsea just takes a deep breath and finds a way to fix it, because as long as she’s doing what she can to support her fellows serving our country, she knows she’s got it right.
“The overall goal is just to take care of the troops. No matter what happens, as long as we can take care of them, everything is okay.”
If you’d like to send a care package to a deployed U.S. soldier, visit Troopster here.
“I was too afraid to really start, and then I ended up falling into it.”CHELSEATROOPSTER OWNER