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Posted on November 26, 2009 - 19:23 PM |
By Sophia Fischer sfischer@theacorn.com
Beanie Babies and Webkinz are saving lives overseas, and Oak Park High School students are lending a hand..
The school’s student council, known as the Associated Student Body, is collecting the plush toys from Mon., Nov. 30 through Fri., Dec. 4. Collection boxes will be set up throughout the campus. The public may drop off donations in the school office at 899 Kanan Road.
The stuffed toys will be brought to Operation Gratitude in Van Nuys, where they will be packed and shipped to United States soldiers serving in Afghanistan. The nonprofit sends care packages to overseas troops. Operation Gratitude has been sending the toys to troops since 2004. Soldiers have written letters of appreciation telling how the stuffed animals not only boost morale among the troops but have also saved their lives.
One Army captain wrote, “We gave that Beanie Baby to an Iraqi child who then gave us a tip. He told us that bad people were making bombs in his neighborhood. The information he gave us led to a major terrorist cell being captured and countless lives, American and Iraqi, being saved.”
Others wrote of similar incidents in which soldiers presented candy and toys to local children who then provided information on where roadside bombs were hidden.
When Oak Park High senior Steven Rich heard about the toy project he wanted to contribute. Steven and his family—parents Jonathan and Becky and sister Emily—have been Operation Gratitude volunteers since April, packing care packages.
“I have friends who are in active service; it’s a cause close to my heart,” Steven said.
He had already encouraged Oak Park’s elementary school students to write letters to troops. The letters are included in the care packages.
“When Steven said, ‘I want to do something in our community,’ we were going to just start on a small scale and ask our friends for Beanie Babies,” Becky Rich said.
She credited Shelly Resnick, the mother of Steven’s best friend Matthew, with encouraging the project to be brought to the high school.
Matthew invited Steven to give a presentation about the idea to the student council, of which Matthew is a member. The council, made up of about 40 students, was supportive of the project, Matthew said.
“We believe very strongly in our troops. We support what they’re doing 100 percent,” said Matthew, a senior. “If they’re willing to risk their lives to protect our country, we can do something to help them out.”
The council leads a number of annual schoolwide community service efforts, including food and blood drives, but this was the first time a student who is not a council member came in with an idea, said Matthew, who has known Steven since kindergarten.
The entire Rich family, including Steven’s older brother Michael and his girlfriend, will spend the day after Thanksgiving packing boxes at Operation Gratitude.
“When we worked there two weeks ago there was a 97-year-old woman who had knit 140 scarves and hats for the service men and women to stay warm. These went into the packages,” Becky Rich said. “It really choked me up.”
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Posted on November 26, 2009 - 19:22 PM |
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
It goes without saying, of course, that all good things come from God. It is to Him, above all, that we owe our lives, our liberties and our individual pursuits of happiness on this earth.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Let it ring in glorious chorus from all over the land this Thanksgiving.
We ourselves, though, are God's hands on earth, His workers, His vintners, His harvesters of these our many good gifts. As all wise men and women know, God helps those who help themselves.
So, I say, if we and our families are blessed with freedom this year, then we must thank a soldier. Freedom, as the sentient saying goes, was never free. And it never will be.
Without those Americans ready to shoulder the burdens of our defenses -- most of us city-dwelling, computer-whizzing, armchair-quarterbacking, cocktail-partying, tennis-playing, lunch-doing, mall-shopping, celebrity-ogling, book-reading, podium-pontificating Americans - would be up the creek in dangerous waters without so much as a twig for a paddle.
And this year, more than most, the American citizen's burden of gratitude is far greater than average.
We now have a Commander in Chief, who in shallow, selfish mode,
regards our troops as a "pretty good photo op." A Commander in Chief, who plays golf, vacations at the Vineyard, takes his wife on fancy dates in New York City and goes apology-tour globetrotting at every possible opportunity -- but dithers and dithers and dithers over the very real decisions concerning our national security. American troops are dying in Afghanistan, some for necessity, others shamefully for want of adequate numbers to get the job done. Without a responsible Commander in Chief this year, our troops need to hear from us more than ever.
We have just suffered the first terrorist attack on our own soil since 9/11. Now, let those safely-ensconced, bubble-headed media elites go on and on all they want with their armchair psychobabble. Anyone with better than a pea-sized brain and an ounce of common sense understands exactly what happened at Ft. Hood.
It was solitary jihad. It was solitary jihad. It was solitary jihad.
Yet, our Ditherer in Chief would apparently like to wait until more Americans are similarly gunned down before "drawing conclusions." Our army's own top officer, General George Casey,
thinks more Ft.-Hood-type attacks would actually be better than if our troops' "diversity" were to suffer:
"Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."
As a mother, I have to wonder whether these dimwits would be singing the same tune if the people killed were little American school children and the shooter was their bus driver, hired by a diversity chief. Perhaps in these leaders' addled minds, soldiers are expendable pawns, not flesh-and-blood sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.
But there you have it, dear readers. President Obama and General Casey would seem to prefer the innocent shedding of real human blood to profiling against even the self-sworn, very vocal enemies within our midst.
With friends like these...
So, this Thanksgiving, more than in any year since 9/11, I'm writing the biggest check I possibly can to my favorite troop-support group.
Operation Gratitude says it all. It's not political; it's just plain thankfulness. Thankful for each and every man and woman, willing to lay down his or her life for the safety of all Americans. Without them, there would be no more Thanksgiving Days.
Operation Gratitude is the only troop-support organization in which every single penny donated actually goes to pay postage for care packages sent to our troops. Not one penny goes for any other expense; none goes for salaries or advertising. Thousands of pure volunteers - receiving not a penny for their time and effort - work tirelessly throughout the year to gather the donated items, which fill each package, addressed to an individual soldier or Marine in harm's way.
Thousands more volunteers lovingly assemble each package in Van Nuys, California and fill it to the brim with snacks, DVDs, phone cards, toiletries and anything else America's companies, civic groups and individuals donate to the cause. Handwritten letters and cards from real Americans go into each and every package.
But, sadly, in this age of profligate government spending, rampant with waste and fraud and political payoffs, postage for packages going to soldiers and Marines in harm's way is an expense our congress simply cannot abide.
They'll spend our money to frank their own political mail from their offices. They'll spend our money to build bridges to nowhere and airports with no passengers. They'll spend thousands of dollars each year for fresh flowers to adorn the Speaker's offices. They'll spend our money on every frivolous absurdity the mind can imagine, but they won't spend it to get packages to our troops in the war zones.
In this age of utter moral confusion, we can thank the Good Lord every minute of the day that some people remain on the straight and narrow and do the good that must be done. One such group of well-grounded folks is Operation Gratitude. The holiday drive is underway. It costs $11 this year to send a single package to the middle east, where most are headed.
Yes, this whole column is a thoroughly shameless, unapologetically transparent plea for money. There are scores of groups asking for it and most are worthy of every penny. But
Operation Gratitude is my favorite. It was started by a mom in her own living room with not an ounce of support from any fat-cat or bigwig. In only 6 years, it has grown to a veritable homefront army, sending not only good cheer and morale-boosting goodies to our beloved troops in harm's way, but enriching a grateful nation - one person at a time - in the process. So, if you possibly can, please donate to the holiday drive this year. More than ever, our troops need to know we love them and appreciate them and honor them -- with all our hearts and souls and wallets.
Happy Thanksgiving Day 2009! We're still free, hallelujah! God-granting and soldiers willing to serve, we always will be.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/blessed_with_freedom_thank_a_s.html at November 26, 2009 - 07:23:04 PM EST
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Posted on June 28, 2009 - 22:35 PM |
Operation Gratitude does one thing (care packages) and does it well. There is no way they could have grown to this large of an operation, be getting addresses straight from the commanders of our military themselves, and be able to send a box out for $11 filled with items with a value of $100, if they did not know what they are doing! In addition to those main two drives, if a commander contacts them with an emergency need, the a shipment is sent out. To date, they have sent out 450,799 care packages! Just in a 6 year period...
How do they do this? ALL items going into the care packages are donated. They have an extensive list of big name sponsors (see site here and here). Space at the California Army National Guard is donated. They use priority mailing boxes from the U.S.P.S. which are free to anyone. (By FREE, I mean the EMPTY BOX can be obtained directly from your local post office or online at no charge to any person or company) Volunteers arrive at specific times throughout the year to prep, assemble and label the care packages. There are over 7000 local volunteers, not including those across the country who donate goods. Each box currently costs Operation Gratitude $11 with $9.85 of that amount going just towards postage costs, leaving not much to cover other expenses including communications, storage, labels and forklift rental, to name a few.
There are several ways in which Operation Gratitude is unique in the Military Support community:
1. We send at least 100,000 care packages every year
2. Each Operation Gratitude care package is personally addressed to a deployed service member
3. We are an all-volunteer organization
4. Our administrative expenses are less than 2% of our budget
That is extremely impressive!! Not many 501(c)(3) organizations can even come close to saying that about their administrative expenses!
To read the rest of the article: War on Terror News
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Posted on November 11, 2008 - 06:52 AM |
Dennis McCarthy, Columnist L.A. Daily News
If Veterans Day means anything - and it should mean a hell of a lot - it's that this country doesn't forget its veterans.
We honor them today, Memorial Day, and every day we look around and appreciate all the freedoms we enjoy.
They weren't free. Veterans fought and died for them. They still are. That's why the e-mail from U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class James Stout is so important.
Stout hits a nerve in this country none of us should be proud of. We can't look the other way and ignore it.
"I know we are old news and a lot of folks back home are tired of the news there (Iraq), but it is important that we not forget those who still serve," Stout wrote.
Yes, the tanking economy is front and center on the nation's mind. Yes, we have a new president-elect with new ideas. Yes, we need health-care reform and better schools.
Yes to a hundred things, but, please, don't forget the men and women who still risk their lives for us, Stout asks. They are not home with their families today. They're still in harm's way, where Stout was until his luck ran out earlier this year on his third deployment.
"I had a run in with an IED - improvised explosive device - that has ended my military career and left me pretty banged and burned up," he writes about his injury in Iraq.
"I have been in recovery and had a few reconstructive surgeries over the last months."
This is the first time I've been able to use Stout's name in print because he was worried that being too frank and honest with a newspaper reporter wouldn't exactly enhance his career advancement in the service.
Stout's the sergeant I wrote about for a Christmas story last year, in USA Today Weekend Magazine and in my column.
The story he told Carolyn Blashek, who runs Operation Gratitude in the San Fernando Valley, was a heartbreaker.
The holidays were coming and one of the men in his platoon was so down, he was contemplating suicide. He had no loved ones back home sending him letters or packages.
"He got back to his bunk one night and there was one of your Operation Gratitude boxes on his bunk," Stout wrote. The boxes are individually addressed to each soldier by name.
"It was the first time in almost a year in Iraq that he had received anything with his name on it," Stout said. "He opened it up and found all the goodies you had sent, along with three letters from school children telling him they were thinking about him and praying for him.
"He broke down and started crying. That's when he admitted his suicidal thoughts. A few days later, he was in counseling and on his way to getting better."
Blashek and I never heard back from Stout after she sent him the stories I'd written. Now she knew why. He had been in a hospital in Germany after being banged up and burned by an IED.
"It's been quite a while but I thought I would update you on the soldier saved by your care package," he began.
"His work attitude and leadership skills have so improved that he has since been promoted to sergeant, and is currently a squad leader. His platoon sergeant tells me he's one of the best in his platoon.
"If you had taken this soldier over a year ago and put him next to the soldier he has become, you would swear it was two different people.
"And it was all due to the care package sent to a soldier by good people back in the States he had never met before."
It gets tougher every year to motivate her own troops, Blashek says - the hundreds of volunteers and donors helping her fill the 70,000 care packages Operation Gratitude will mail to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan this holiday season.
She's been doing it for six years and mailed more than 300,000 care packages.
"It's tough motivating even the best volunteers because nobody wants to talk about this (Iraq) anymore," she said Monday.
"I waited until after the election to send out donation letters to meet our holiday goal because I knew it would get lost in all the election mail.
"I was stymied. I didn't know what to write to motivate people anymore."
Then a wounded sergeant on the mend wrote an e-mail asking, please, not to forget our troops still serving in harm's way this Veterans Day.
They're not old news.
Tax-deductible donations can be made by going online to www.operationgratitude.com or sending a check to Operation Gratitude, 16444 Refugio Road, Encino, CA 91436.
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Posted on November 9, 2008 - 23:03 PM |
Reprinted from American Thinker
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
When was the last time you saw American soldiers being interviewed in prime time? When was the last time you saw wall-to-wall coverage of the NYC ticker-tape parades in our soldiers' honor? When was the last time you heard an American newsman even acknowledge that we're still fighting (and WINNING!) a war?
What in tarnation is happening to this great Country?
While not a single day in the past six years has passed without real, flesh-and-red-blooded Americans fighting full-scale war in the Middle East on our behalf -- and at our Congress' behest! -- our own media has surrendered to an imbecilic and exclusive obsession with politics.
Stars fill their eyes. Tingles run up their legs. Mindlessly they follow candidate wardrobe changes with fascination. Like idiots, they mistake gossip for hard news.
And they have the nerve to think the rest of us are hicks without brains.
But never fear, real people are here to do the real work that needs to be done.
Operation Gratitude continues their valiant effort to give a little thanks where thanks is more than due. Thousands and thousands of all-volunteer homefront support forces are gathering from sunup to sundown every day of the week to get care packages to every man and woman in uniform still in harm's way.
This year's holiday package drive has been under way for months now. Volunteers work tirelessly packing each box with goodies, letters and genuine love.
Now this is newsworthy.
What is even more newsworthy is the fact that unless we all pitch in with our dollars, these packages will rot on the shipping deck for want of sufficient postage to get them to our troops in the war zones. Yes, it costs about $10 per package to actually get them to our soldiers. And according to America's Troop Mom, Carolyn Blashek, this is the very first time in Operation Gratitude's history that she lacks the funds to send those packages to the war zones.
One would think a patriot congressman would sponsor a bill offering free postage to our troops, but alas I'm not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, the tallies are in on how much was spent on this one campaign. About $5 billion. Barack Obama, alone, raised more than $600 million.
Operation Gratitude only needs about $500,000 to get every package to our troops. Only the postage must be paid. Every single goodie is donated. Every single man-hour of labor is donated. Every single dollar raised goes for postage.
And every dollar donated for postage is tax-deductible.
Operation Gratitude spends not a single penny on advertising, fundraising or salaries. From the stockers, to the packers, to the public relations people and to the managers, it is all love and no money.
Am I passionate about this? Yes. Am I personally invested? Yes. Am I disgusted with our politicians and their extravagance on meaningless junk? Yes. Am I asking every American to donate to Operation Gratitude right now? Yes.
And this is how I've decided to think about these donations. Every single tax-deductible dollar that we give Operation Gratitude for our troops is a dollar that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will not get for their own squander.
But the bottom line here is that these packages to our troops not only bolster their morale, sometimes they actually save lives.
Every time I talk to Carolyn Blashek, America's Troop Mom, she tells me another story that sends chills up my spine and often brings tears to my eyes. This one, though, takes the cake as far as I'm concerned.
It seems that another wonderful American lady, who loves Beanie Babies, convinced Carolyn that these adorable little bean-stuffed critters would make a great addition to OpGrat care packages for the troops. Since the lady donated a whole lot of them, Carolyn agreed and faithfully included them in packages, not sure what the reactions from grown men and women in a theater of war would be.
Almost immediately, email began arriving, specifically mentioning the Beanie Babies. Stories were as varied and inventive as the great American ingenuity that inspired them. Soldiers told of Beanie Baby squad mascots, creative naming projects, competitive games centered upon the latest Beanie Baby, and on an on and on. Truly, even Carolyn was shocked at the overall success of the Beanie Baby project. Humorous diversions in hellish circumstances, of course, are as old as war itself, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.
But then, startling revelations began to arrive at the OpGrat headquarters, and the Beanie Baby project took on a whole new meaning. They were actually saving lives and helping to win the war.
Some of our truly exceptional, brilliant soldiers had the idea to trade the Beanie Babies with Iraqi children for information on hidden IED's. The children, so bereft of toys, gladly showed soldiers where explosives were hidden in exchange for the coveted cuddly critters.
Soldiers saved by a toy, proving once again that God truly works in mysterious ways. Who could have imagined this?
So, please, please, please dear readers, subtract some dollars from your holiday giving plans and send the money instead to OpGrat.
The swelling in your hearts will more than make up for the shrinking of your wallets.
This is one promise at the end of this campaign season that will not be broken.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She blogs at
www.commonsenseregained.com .
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