Gifts from home

Last year, Hazelhurst resident Cindy Dunbar found herself searching for a creative outlet and new business venture. Before long, she crossed that idea with her strong sense of patriotism and past retail experience to develop Sincerely for Heroes, an online store that ships items directly to service members deployed overseas.

“I am extremely patriotic, I always have been, and service members have a place in my heart,” Dunbar said. “I was raised that way. I go out of my way to say ‘thank you’ every opportunity I get.”

Dunbar has personal experience sending packages to servicemen overseas — she has two stepsons who have served in the Navy, one of which was deployed overseas in a “high-risk area.”

After dealing with the complexities and restrictions of international shipping and customs, Dunbar identified the need for a quick, simple online shop that took care of the hassle — which can be significant.

“It can get messy, it can get tedious,” Dunbar said

One roadblock individuals face is determining what sort of items they can and cannot ship to overseas personnel. Buying items through a dedicated online shop like Sincerely for Heroes, Dunbar said, removes that uncertainty.

“There’s a lot things you can’t ship. Liquids are something you can’t ship, not even certain amounts. Tobacco you can’t ship,” Dunbar explained. “A lot of people ship things and they go into Customs and disappear. It’s even more regulated as a business, but that’s my part of making sure whatever I’m selling will go through. I only offer items I know will go through.”

One particularly thorny aspect of sending items overseas, especially a package with multiple items, is familiarizing oneself with the Harmonized System (HS) codes.

According to the International Trade Administration, the Harmonized System is a standardized numerical method of classifying traded products. It is used by countries around the world to uniformly identify and describe products for purposes such as assessing duties and gathering statistics.

Each item in a package, Dunbar said, needs to be identified by a specific HS code.

“It’s time consuming. It doesn’t make the process as worry-free and as focused on getting something sent to your loved one as you’d like it to be,” Dunbar said. “Then you have to wonder, if it never gets there, what did I do wrong?”

Sincerely for Heroes offers a range of items, from clothing to snacks and food to personalized hygiene products. The shop also offers packages that include a variety of items, for which an individual would have to research each and every HS code.

The Pocket Boosters package, for example, includes five flavors of energy mints, 12 electrolyte hydration powder sticks, six trail mix packs, six packs of yogurt-covered fruit bites, four energy bars and six almond packs — all of which require different HS codes.

“One of my packages is coffee, I sell a unique brand of coffee. Say you want to send them three different flavors to try and give them something different over there … Now each flavor has its own code: Is it dark roast? Is it flavored? Is it ground? All of that needs to be listed for one package,” Dunbar said.

All items are stocked, hand-packaged and shipped by Dunbar, who enjoys decorating the boxes with festive packaging and sometimes tossing in freebies, like branded water bottles.

“I try to make it more of a gift than just a box, so that it’s fun for them to open it,” she said.

Dunbar started developing Sincerely for Heroes early this year and launched the online store in April. She says she’s already received positive feedback

“To have a service member who are missing their family, getting a package can instantly make them feel connected to their family back home. They know the heart that went into it and how they were thinking of them when they picked it out.

For more information, visit sincerelyforheroes.com.

Michael Strasburg may be reached at [email protected].