This is a really good idea to help keep our deployed servicepeople close to their families back home:

The e-mails have been rolling in to Mitch Goldstone for weeks since he launched a program to collect used digital cameras to donate to military families.

Among the most heartbreaking was one from Madeline Letchford. The wife of a deployed Camp Pendelton Marine said she was sad that she’d have to spend her first anniversary – Valentine’s Day – without her husband.

The Marine, was also missing out on “every blink” of their newborn son’s growth, she wrote to Goldstone. Not anymore.

Two weeks ago, Operation Photo handed Letchford a digital camera that she has used to snap nearly 100 photos of 6-month old Jimi smiling, crying and sleeping. She e-mails them to her husband, and posts them on Goldstone’s Irvine-based Web site, a service he offers for free.

“It just means so much to share the silly things that moms and dads get to see,” the Oceanside resident said.

Over the past two months, Goldstone has collected more than 2,500 used digital cameras after asking clients of his 30 Minute Photos shop and online photo-services business to donate digital cameras to military families. Operation Homefront, a Santa Ana nonprofit group that helps military families, is working with Goldstone to distribute the cameras across the country.