The Sky Angel's Blog

When the email call arrived at the Pacific Northwest workshop, chief elf Angel 2 went into action planning a fundraiser for the donations needed in this project and to support 5 other deployed units The Sky Angel has been supporting. Angel 2 contacted Cindy Brown the manager of The Valley Tavern in Port Hadlock, who along with the owners Chuck & Karen Russell generously agreed to host the Fundraiser.  Cindy jumped in to help plan the fundraiser, cooking all the food for the actual event and personally donating most of it.  Meanwhile The Sky Angel continued to rally for donations all over the world both for monetary and actual items to be included in the care packages, rallied to get schools involved with making cards for the troops, spoke at a church near the Southern Workshop, and participated in a book signing with author Steve Flairty, who featured The Sky Angel in his latest book “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes 2”.  

The original  time line to get the calling cards in time for the holidays was to have them shipped to Afghanistan by October 10th (because of the length of time it takes for Santa’s Sleigh to reach The Gators), but for various reasons the shipment could not go out until the beginning of November.  The initial donations received exceeded the “Mail Call for Our Heroes” project goal, even with extra expenses not previously foreseen.  The Sky Angel took care of the calling cards and accompanying Christmas cards from various sources, including the ones she wrote herself.  

Angel 2 concentrated on the Fundraiser and took to the streets passing out fliers for the Fundraiser, collecting items for the silent auction to be held at the Fundraiser, including many handmade items from family and friends, and email networking.  Angel 2 even went to the local gun store, after her husband planted a seed in her head to do so, and was received with open arms, leaving with many donations. Many were skeptical that these would sell at the Fundraiser but in reality they were the most heavily bid on items.  The Sky Angel & Angel 2 as well as their family members and friends were all on site during the Fund Raiser and Angel 2 personally managed the silent auction. 

The remaining funds from “Mail Call for Our Heroes” project were added to the Pacific Northwest Fundraiser proceeds, leaving a generous allotment to fund Holiday care packages for “The Gators” and the other 5 units.  The Sky Angel enlisted the help of one of Santa’s Elves with a pickup truck and purchased a Christmas tree for each unit and all the decorations to put on them.  By this time the Southern Workshop was looking like a cyclone went through it, with Christmas trees, ornaments, Christmas cards, and care package contents spread everywhere. The push was on to finish off the care packages and have them on the sleigh by the first part of November in order for Santa’s sleigh to arrive on time.  Knowing she had to leave in a few days to get back to work, The Sky Angel worked furiously to get the job done of putting together the care packages and hand writing the many remaining Christmas cards to accompany them 1 1/2 days before returning to the friendly skies.  Just as the packages were loaded onto the sleigh, an email request came asking for help with a Marine unit in Afghanistan.  When the Sky Angel communicated with that particular Marine (Marcus), she was told he was more concerned about his buddies in the 3/5 Marines, Lima Co. in Afghanistan, who had suffered tremendous casualties and needing a moral booster Sky Angel style. 

The Sky Angel immediately asked for help from her network of elves, and received a generous donation which enabled her to spring into action and quickly purchase a Christmas tree, all the decorations, Christmas cards and the traditional care package items for the entire 3/5 Marine Lima Company.  The Sky Angel also knew that Marcus’ Marine Unit (MWHS) probably needed a morale boost too, so she matched the donation given for the 3/5 Marines with donations from the fund raiser and her own wallet, sending Marcus and his MWHS Marine unit a Christmas tree, decorations, and whipped up one giant care package for them as well.

The Sky Angel then contacted Marcel Rust of the Rust Family, who sponsors the http://adoptahero.us  website, who is working to get every member of the 3/5 Marines in all the different companies adopted for the Holidays and the remainder of their deployments. This whirl wind operation was completed in a little over one day for our Marines, with the packages being loaded onto the sleigh as The Sky Angel was heading to the airport, to go back to work.

 

Thanks to The Sky Angel, Angel 2, their family & friends, and many very generous big-hearted individuals, the following deployed men and women as well as hundreds of others in their units will have brighter Holiday’s.

 

Tags: donations, hero, heroes, Robin Schmidt, soldiers, Supporting our Heroes, The Sky Angel, troops, volunteering

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 at 16:14 and is filed under Supporting our Heroes, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.