We used to get welfare packages in NI whilst on duty at Chrimbo, very nice gesture and fairly random contents! Cakes/Bicuits, reading materials, smelly-stuff like soap deodorant, scarfs and hats, etc.
Knowing what I know now, I maybe should not have eaten the cakes (unless originally wrapped packaging)!
The Administrator of our Department (about 50 of us all told) used to make up small boxes on a regular basis to be sent to troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and we really enjoyed doing it. She used to tell us about four weeks beforehand what she needed to send and it became an easy thing just to pick up bits and pieces during the month.
The only rules were no booze, porn or short-life perishables so we just got an extra deodorant, packet of sweets, baby wipes, magazine, tissues, plain white socks and so on when we were buying stuff for ourselves. We would also include those little hand soaps and bottles of shampoo which we picked up in hotels. If she needed envelopes with a short, chatty note to include then she would just ask us.
It was an easy thing to do and our lady often got notes of appreciation back - well worthwhile if it brightened the day of someone far from home, working in crap conditions, often being shot at, buggered about and certainly missing their normal surroundings.
I can't remember whether she took the boxes to a central point or if someone picked them up but, my question is, does that sort of thing still happen? I believe it was called Shoeboxes for the Troops...
Good luck with this OP, it's a great thing to do, well done!