The 2012 Sears Heroes at Home Gift Registry Application period will open at 1:00 PM Central Time on Thursday, 30 August 2012. Registration is open for just 13 hours, until 11:59 that same night, or until 20,000 eligible registrations are received, whichever comes first. Individuals registering must be at least 17 years old and on active duty between 30 August 2012 and 3 December 2012, in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, or Reserves.
If you are unfamiliar with the Sears Heroes at Home program, it is a really generous program in which Sears asks its customers to donate gift cards to military folks, and then it organizes the distribution of the gift cards. The program has been widely criticized in past years for computer servers unable to keep up with the registration demand, and for the shockingly ungrateful behavior of many of the people who tried to apply and were unable to get through the process or were not within the designated number of registrations. There have also been many military spouses online complaining that this program is eligible to ALL military folks, not just ones with children or lower-ranking service members or people who have been deployed or whatever little special interest group they believe is superior. It has been embarassing and I'm actually quite surprised that Sears is even doing the program again this year.
If you are interested, click on the link above at 1:00 PM Central Time on 3o August 2012, and be prepared for the madness.
