Mother′s Day is a real challenge for families who have loved ones serving abroad in the military. Whether you are a mom serving in the military, stationed abroad, or you’re deployed and your mom is back home missing you, it can be a really tough day.

As the President of eMail Our Military (eMOM) and a military spouse, I’ve been working with different organizations who want to help make the pain of separation just a little bit easier on our military service members and their families.

I met Conrad through mutual friends on Twitter and now we’re working together to get the word out to everyone interested in making this Mother’s Day, May 11th, a little easier for all of us who have loved ones in the military.

Prior to September 11, 2001 it was possible for civilians to send letters, notes, and homemade cards to military service members through a program called Any Service Member mail. With the threat of terrorism following 9/11, the Department of Defense cancelled the Any Service Member mail program for the safety of our military. As a result, eMail Our Military was created to help fill the void.

My friends at Qipit joined us in our efforts this year and have been very helpful in working with us to personalize email to and from our troops. Qipit is now making it really easy for personal communications, like cards, letters and even legal documents, to be converted into an email format.

Just as Conrad has written here many times, Qipit is a free online copy, scanning and fax service that doesn’t require a scanner, just a digital camera or camera phone. I’m finding that it is the next best thing to the original document, much easier than going to a copy store and it saves you the expense.

Here at eMail Our Military, we were already getting our messages of love and support to the frontlines electronically, now we can again send the actual images, from their creators to our troops.

As you can imagine, it is so much more meaningful to see the words of from a child or spouse in their own handwriting, and with illustrations.

If you’re reading this and you don’t know anyone in the military, you can still get involved. Our service members need you. Please contact us and we’ll show you how. Everyone is invited to join eMOM. Our military needs all of our support.

Mother′s Day is the perfect opportunity to tell them and their families how much we appreciate them and support them and their Moms.

~ Trish Forant, President, eMail Our Military

P.S. If you need some tips on how to best use Qipit to send a special and quick Mother′s Day Card, check out Conrad′s Mother′s Day blog post.