Summer will be over before we even know it. Kids will be headed back to school and it won’t be long before we start thinking about what to get our loved ones for Christmas. What is on the horizon for the Rogue Chapter? Our annual chapter BBQ is later this month at Veteran’s Park in Medford next to the National Guard Armory and then planning starts for food baskets. We are still collecting, clipping and sending manufacture coupons out of the Sunday paper to troops overseas.
I recently returned from our 50th annual convention in Las Vegas. One huge program that has many in NCOA excited is our partnership with SnowBall Express. This is a program that provides for the children of our fallen brothers and sisters who have died since 9/11. Every year Snowball brings about 2000 kids and surviving parent or guardian to Dallas, Texas to be with other kids age 5-18 that have also lost a father or mother to the war. They get to be normal kids for a few days and the community of Dallas holds nothing back when it comes to treating these kids like VIPs. Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band perform every year for the kids. Terry Fator who performed at our recent convention is also a huge supporter of these kids. This is a program that can impact each of us just as significantly as it does these kids.
In the near future we are supposed to be provided lists of how many kids are in each chapter’s area. As a chapter we can help two ways. We can host a snowflake event where kids of the fallen can come together for a fun time. Some possible suggestions that have surfaced are take the kids on a Hells Gate boat trip or perhaps host a day trip to Crater Lake. These snowflake events are not fund raising events, but focus on letting the kids be with other kids like them and have some fun. We would need to either get donations or raise sufficient funds to pay the expenses of the kids and parents. Another option would be to raise funds to sponsor families to attend the Snowball event in Dallas. It costs about $500 per person to sponsor a child so the minimum it would cost for a child and parent is $1000. Some families have multiple children so costs rise depending on the size of the family.
There are some members of this chapter who joined strictly to support this project and I would venture to say there are many of you who would be willing to give a little time if you knew that a child here in Oregon who lost a mom or dad in Iraq or Afghanistan were benefiting from your gift of time. We are always looking for ideas and if this project triggers an idea for either a Snowflake event or sponsoring a family to Snowball in Dallas, please share your thoughts. I can be reached at retiredveteran89@outlook.com or you can drop a line to Rogue Chapter #1260, PO Box 5597, Central Point, OR 97502. I look forward to hearing from you.