Butler High School senior Marissa Matecka coordinates a schoolwide project in which students write Christmas cards for military personnel overseas. This year she'll be sending more than 2,000 cards.

BUTLER TWP — Millions of Americans look forward to spending time with their families over the holidays. However, military personnel overseas don't have that chance.

But Marissa Matecka, a Butler High School senior, wanted to do something to help.

For the past two years, she's been collecting holiday cards from students to distribute to the military overseas. The schoolwide project has been dubbed Operation Christmas Card.

“It was just a spur of the moment thing,” Marissa, 17, said of when she came up with the idea a year ago. “My goal last year was 100 cards, but I ended up with more than 1,200.”

The JROTC cadet had a loftier goal this year: she wanted to collect 2,000 cards. She said she's better prepared now to do that.

She gave her high school peers two months to make the cards during homeroom period each morning, from the beginning of October until the day before Thanksgiving. She also invited students from the intermediate high school to participate.

On Friday morning, a box was in Marissa's homeroom with a pleasant surprise: another classroom had made more than 1,300 cards.

“I wasn't expecting this,” she said, sifting through the box and cracking a smile.

Now that box of cards, along with other cards she's been collecting, have far surpassed her 2,000-card goal. She'll determine her final count at the end of the month.

“What I like about it is it's so different,” said Jeff Schnur, high school principal. “My hope is she can get someone to pick it up for next year.”

Some students have created handmade cards; others bring in store bought ones and add handwritten messages.

Senior Zoe McCafferty, 17, who keeps busy writing several cards during homeroom, repeats a simple message in each card that resonates: “Thank you for being away from your loved ones so I can be with mine.”

“It's nice to get something for Christmas,” she said, counting about 20 cards she had written Friday with a few other classmates.

The cards, which are written anonymously, will be distributed through the American Red Cross.

Marissa will mail about six large boxes of cards to the distribution headquarters in Maryland after Thanksgiving.

The homeroom class that ends up writing the most cards will be rewarded with a breakfast party.