CM & B Care Package Team-Building Event in Westlake Village, CA

CM & B hosted a care package team-building event in Westlake Village, California, on Oct. 19, 2026. 35 boutique hotel owners and managers joined the afternoon session at the Westlake Village Inn. The group split into six teams for a custom version of our Hopeful Horizons activity. Their goal was to have fun together and pack care packages for Operation Shoebox, which supports deployed U.S. service members.

CM & B, short for Corporate Marketing & Branding, helps brands with strategy, events, and promotional products. The company serves global organizations and growing businesses with event planning, trade show management, corporate gifting, and integrated marketing programs. It started in 2000 as a promotional products distributorship.

Hotel Leaders Pack Care Packages for Troops in Westlake Village, California

CM & B first worked with us in October 2025, when its group built bikes for charity at the Westlake Village Inn. This year, the company came back to the same venue to try something new.

Hopeful Horizons usually has teams fill duffel bags for teens in foster care. For this group, we customized the charity piece. Instead, teams built care packages for deployed service members. The activity is designed for multigenerational groups. Its light-hearted challenges help coworkers learn how each person likes to communicate. That made it a good fit for a room full of owners and managers from different hotels.

Our instructor, Debbie Brunet, led the session. She said the group was fun, collaborative, and fiercely competitive. The afternoon kicked off with fast-paced team competitions. The rivalry got so spirited that a little playful cheating crept in along the way. The room was full of laughs as teams battled for each win.

Then the group shifted its focus to giving back. Together, the six teams packed six care packages for Operation Shoebox. The boxes will go to U.S. military members deployed overseas. Debbie said the group brought fantastic energy, embraced the competition, and had a great time making a difference together.

Operation Shoebox is based in central Florida. Military mom Mary Harper started it in 2003 as a living room project to lift troop morale. Today, it ships about 800 to 1,000 packages of snacks, personal items, and thank-you notes each week. Debbie dropped off CM & B’s boxes for shipping to the charity on Oct. 20.

We’d like to thank Dena Van Winkle and the CM & B team for having us back. We’d also like to thank Operation Shoebox for the work it does for service members around the world.