Our Military Kids

2012 Christmas Gift Wish List

Thank you to all who participated in this year’s wounded warrior Christmas Gift Wish List project.  Between the families provided by Our Military Kids, Ruth Hoffman at Walter Reed and recommendations from others in the program, we purchased over $20,000 worth of gifts for 140 kids.  This is an increase of more than 40 percent from last year’s list.  Please check below for the names of adopted families and those who provided support.  I know a number of folks not only purchased gifts, but also helped out with Christmas dinners, decorations, etc.   I hope you all had a great experience and will maintain an ongoing relationship with your families.  If you have them, please forward copies of photos and any comments you may have received from your respective families to Santa@bobnelsonteam.com; gmschaefer@ourmilitarykids.com; ruth.d.hoffman.civ@health.mil.  Both Gloria Schaefer and Ruth Hoffman provide support to our service member families year round and definitely deserve our thanks.  Also see comments from both the families and some of the sponsors.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

Cash donations:

Rex Latham – $100

Pat Martin – $300

Jane Muehr – $150

Kim Degnan – $150

Tom Steffens – $150

Tarry Farries – $1,000

Doug and Jane Hanscom – $100

Suzanne and Cofer Black – $500

The Grande Dams Book Club – $425

A.  Rio Family – Adopted by Roellig Family

B.  Welton Family – Adopted by Collingswood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

C.  Alexander Family - Adopted by Collingswood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

D.  McMains Family – Adopted by the Heymann Family

E.  Maynor Family – Adopted by Tom Francis and Family

F.  Nemwan Family – Adopted by Mary Lou Christy and Family

G.  Rivera Family – Adopted through cash donations

H.  Harrison Family – Adopted by Louis and Alice Andors

I.  Jones Family – Adopted by Blackbird Technologies

J.  Bentley Family – Adopted by Blackbird Technolgies

K.  Czech Family – Adopted through cash donations

L.  Green Family – Adopted through cash donations.

M.  Sproul Family – Adopted by the Sales Associates at Tory Burch

N.  Family – Adopted by Diane Glerum and Josee Cox

O.  Family – Adopted by Diane Glerum and Josee Cox

P.  Banks Family – Adopted by Gloria Schaeffer with Our Military Kids.

Q.  Jauregui Family – Adopted by Santa

R.  Lopez Family – Adopted by Susan Kristol

S.  Burkett Family – Adopted by Julianna Chapman

T.  Shanrahan Family – Adopted by Julianna Chapman

U.  Burkett Family – Adopted by Josee Cox and Diane Morales-Glerum

V.  Ohmer Family – Adopted by Josee Cox and Diane Morales-Glerum

W.  Oppelt Family – Adopted by Christine Henck

X.  Hunter Family – Adopted by Jeff and Mia Barb

Y.  Green Family – Adopted by Santa

Z.  Banks Family – Adopted by Gloria Schaeffer

Original List of 40 families

1.  Keen Family – Adopted by the McGillis Family

2.  Jackson Family – Adopted by the Landy Family

3.  Hess Family - Have had a good turn of events and withdrawn their names from the list.  This is the best type of gift one can receive!

4.   Adams Family – Adopted by Ambre and Dave McLaughlin

5.   SSG Cortinas Family – Adopted by Otto and Nita Hoernig

6.  Moran Family – Adopted by the Digges family.

7.  Anderson Family – Adopted by Laura Rhodes and Rick Whaley

8.  Ahlin Family  - Adopted by the Augustine Family

9.  Shive Family – Adopted through cash donations

10.   SSG Moore Family – Adopted by Laura and Gene Smith

11.  Harper Family -Adopted by Mary and Steve Cassady

12.  Spoerle Family – Adopted by Laura Rhodes and Rick Whaley

14.  Holmes Family – Adopted by Norma and Brent Bozell

15.  Diaz Family (Family name is Delgado) – Adopted by Hartley Family

16.  Scott Family – Adopted by Tim Heil and family.

17.  King (Patterson) Family – Adopted by Shiner Roofing and Siding

18.  Marr Family

Girl, 7 – Adopted by Andy Stern and Vernon Wyly (Andy Stern Furniture)

Boy, 3 – Adopted by Bill and Linda Flickinger

19.  Davis Family – Adopted by the Leach Family

20. Bob Pierce – Adopted by the Wise Family

21.   Childs Family – Adopted by Double Eagle Title

22.  Fitzner Family – Adopted by the Chmura Family

23.  Lewis Family – Adopted by Claire Abbott

24.  SGT Fitzpatrick Family – Adopted by the employees at Trace Systems Inc.

25. SGT Karpf Family – Adopted by Gina and Doug Jones

26.  Santos Family – Adopted by the employees at SKC LLC.

27. SSG Keaton Family – Adopted by Shiner Roofing and Siding

28.  SFC Platt Family – Adopted by Dave and Lyn LaMorte

29.  Lopez Family – Adopted by Chris and John Yaremchuk

30.  Mund Family – Adopted by Larry Sabin and family

31.  Staton Family – Adopted by Andrea Kamman and family

32.  Dawsey Family – Adopted by Paula Quiroz

33. Timothy Ashworth – Adopted by the Peters Family

34.   MacDonald Family – Adopted by Adeler Jewelers

35. Greg and Betty Easley – Adopted by the Fitzgerald Family

36.  McLean Family – Adopted by the Kuzmick family

37.  Coleman Family – Adopted by Shiner Roofing and Siding

38.  Tejada Family - Adopted by the employees at Trace Systems Inc.

39.  Bedore Family – Adopted by the Eric Brugel Family

40.  Ruiz Family – Adopted by Sam Ghanem, AFT International

Comments from some of the families:

Bob,

Thank you so much for calling on Friday. It means so much to hear of your support for our family. It has been a rough year with my husband being admitted inpatient twice for PTSD/TBI issues to hospitals in New York and D.C.  I have had to be a dual parent most of this last year and try to carry forward as best as I can. We appreciate and are so thankful for what you do in order to get our family adopted this year.

I wish a Merry Christmas to you and your family!!!!

Sorry this took so long to get to you, but I really appreciate your patience and generosity!  This has been a rough year for our family.  I’m not sure how much background you were given on us, but my husband was injured in June in Afghanistan when his compound was attacked by insurgents.  He took a grenade to the left side of his face, where shrapnel entered his brain through his left eye.  Among a few other minor injuries, he has a traumatic brain injury as well as a lost left eye.  All in all, he is doing remarkably well, but as you can imagine things have not been easy, especially for the kids.  My husband, however, is on the mend and back home with us receiving care here in Michigan, so we are very fortunate to be able to spend the holidays with him.

We would be interested in the program this year, as we are unable to provide much for our children this year due to money issues. We have 5 children- ages: 14, girl; 12,boy; 5,girl; 2,girl; and 7 months, boy. Our older children understand that we will need to wait until after the new year (tax season) to provide Christmas gifts, but the younger ones are still expecting Santa to visit.  (Please note:  We have the family adopted and the “older” kids will definitely be taken care of.)

Yes, We did receive your box! I was out of town visiting my mother in San Diego who is sick and did not return until today. But, my neighbor saw the box and kept it for me until today. He said it came on Friday (Nov30). I did not open the box because the girls were right there with me! THANK YOU so much for your kindness and your generosity! I know the girls will absolutely love the dolls that you so thoughtfully picked out for them! My husband and I are very grateful to you and your beautiful daughter Isabel. You embody the true spirit of Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you and your family, may God giving you many more blessings for your act of kindness towards my girls. We truly wish upon you and yours the best in life….

Email from Samantha to Eric:

I just read your e-mail, and started crying! My husband thinks I can be a big baby, but I have I am just so grateful. My family and I were not going to do much this year because we don’t have that much money and our girls were not expecting a lot for Christmas. Since you have adopted our family, I thought you would like to know a little bit about ourselves.My husband has served ten years in the army and has done 5 tours to Iraq. He was severely injured on our oldest daughters first birthday when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. He battles many challenges but the most challenging one is his memory. He currently doesn’t recollect a lot of our oldest child growing up and also forgets things throughout the day, we take brain training classes near our home at the VA and it seems to have helped a little and are currently still in therapy. He has as well had multiple surgeries and more recently our Orthopedics Dr. has asked us to consider a prosthetic leg for my husband because of the lack of mobility and pain he is in, its just a really hard decision to make.

I currently am going to school full time and hope to become a physical therapist in the future ( I am going on my second year, still have a long road ahead). I hope to help people who have have been injured just like my husband serving in the military on tour. After my husband was injured, he lost hope not knowing what to do. I have thankfully motivated him to go to school and I am his note taker in his classes and proud to say he is passing. He gets discouraged when he says he cannot recollect things I have spent lots of time working on him with but he doesn’t stop, and if he won’t give up, I sure won’t. I hope you don’t mind me telling you so much, I just thought you would like to know a little bit about us and who we are.

Thank you again for adopting our family,we are very grateful. My husband and I will look on Amazon as soon as we get home!!

Comments from some of the supporters:

Bob:  We thank you for the opportunity to help two families. We had a wonderful day.

Diane Glerum

 

Hi Bob,

I wanted to let you know my family has order the gifts for the Weinrick Family.

 Thanks for letting me part take in this….

 Thanks

 Michael

I called our family last night.

It was such a great conversation..one of admiration and appreciation on my end and one of gratefulness on his end.

During our telephone conversation Tara was moved to tears that someone who didn’t even know her was willing to help her family.   They are struggling financially and had already prepared their 7 year old daughter to expect a lean Christmas this year.

From Eric Brugel:

  FYI, I have had a touching exchange with Samantha and Jason Bedore regarding the gifts.  It heightens my appreciation for their contribution to the country.  Thanks for making the effort to pull this all together.  I gave them a budget of $250 per child, which was above your suggestion, and I am glad I did given what they are going through.  BTW,  I googled his name and it turns out he did 5 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and received the Purple Heart.  She has also served and is in the reserves now.  She never made any mention of this to me.  It is really moving.

This one is mine to Pam Czech:

    It was a real pleasure speaking with you today and I am looking forward to helping make this Christmas a little bit brighter.  Please go ahead and send me some ideas of what your son would like to have under the tree on Christmas day.  I feel privileged to help out after all you have given to this great country.  As we discussed, please try to limit the list of items to $150.  As a grandfather of three wonderful little ones, I have to make an exception to my own guidelines, but you are the first grandma I’ve had on the list.  Please send me a few items that you would like to give the grandkids and I will make sure to get them out to you.  I only ask that you limit the amount for these gifts to $50 per child.  (Changed my mind after thinking further and we went ahead and ordered $150 per grandchild as well.)
Go ahead and send the wish lists to Santa@bobnelsonteam.com.  I would like to ask that you send me a few photos of the kids opening their gifts so that I can post these on my website.  I invite you to visit my website:  www.bobnelsonteam.com to see the entire list of kids and some of the comments I have received.  Good luck getting back on that Harley!

Hi Bob!

I hope you’re prepped for the Holidays! They closing in on us fast.  I just wanted to reach out and thank you for putting me in touch with Angie and Wes.  I met with her today to do Christmas shopping with our donations and had such an incredible time.  We also threw in a $50 gift certificate to a local pizza parlor to help provide a yummy dinner for them as well.

It was truly a unique and humbling experience. I hope to keep in touch with them in the future.  As far as working together in the future, would it be possible for you to put together a little, very informal, proposal of what you’d like us to do and we can see how we can assist you? I would even be interested in participating outside of ToryBurch, as well.  No need for any of this until after the New Year, I’m sure you’re busy.

Again, thank you very much for assisting us on making this a reality and I look forward to speaking to you soon!

Warmest Regards,

Carley McClintock   Sales Associate

Military Appreciation Monday

Supports

Neighbors Foundation

- Come join us at The Old Brogue in Great Falls on February 27^th for this month’s MAM event in support of the Neighbors Foundation.  All you have to do is show up and eat a great meal.  Myself and my co-sponsors will each donate a 10 percent match of whatever you spend on dinner.  In November, 220% of the receipts were donated to the  group Stop Soldier Suicide.

Last month’s Military Appreciation Mondays dinner in support of the Golden Age Games was our most successful event to date.  We ended up raising more than $5000 which will help support the sending of several local vets to the next games which are to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Hope you can make it to this month’s dinner on October 25th which will be raising money for Operation Second Chance.

Thank you again to all of you who came out and a special thanks to our co-sponsors and door prize donors.

Co-sponsors Include:

Nelson Family

Norman Family

Grossman Family

Julius Fleishman

Gary Kaihara, DDS

The Old Brogue

Carillon Capital

Chris Melnick – LSA Title Services

Taylor Allgyer – First Savings Mortgage

James Gaudiosi – Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

and our Door Prize donors

Adeler Jewelers

PF Changs Restaurant

Dominion Title

Great Falls Design Build

State Farm Insurance

Great Falls Exxon

Legenter LLC

Neighbors Network

Lodgecliff on the Choptank B&B

B Sweet Home Baked Pies

Romantica Deli

Maison du Vin

This morning, I stopped and spoke briefly with the receptionist at the Great Falls Executive Suites regarding Military Appreciation Mondays.  We had a very nice conversation regarding the fund raising events and how the community has become so supportive.  At the end of our discussion, I left a copy of the flyer announcing the event on Monday the 24th.  About two hours later, she left two personal checks sitting on the desk I had been using, each for $50 to be donated to Our Military Kids and the Neighbors Foundation.  While I won’t mention her by name, I just have to say how much this is appreciated and the signal it sends our service men and women.

WE ALL CARE AND APPRECIATE WHAT YOU DO EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, NOT JUST ONE MONDAY EACH MONTH.

This month’s charity night at the Pub in Great Falls will be in support of the American Diabetes Association.  The decision to choose this particular charity was in direct response to a request by Mary and Kevin Crabtree who will actually be settling on the purchase their new home in Reston.  Those of you who have attended previous events may recall that Mary actually won drawing for the Tiffany bowl donated by Toll Brothers.   If you are unfamiliar with how the event works, 20 percent of the cost of your meal is donated to the monthly charity.  We do not ask for any type of donation.  Simply come, have a great dinner and enjoy the company.  I would strongly encourage you to bring any friends or relatives.   These events take place on the last Tuesday of the month (May 26th) at the Pub in Great Falls.  We will begin at approximately 7:00 PM.  If possible, please call the Old Brogue to make a reservation and be sure to ask that you are seated with our group.  Simply print out the coupon and bring it with you to insure that the ADA is credited and you will entered into our monthly drawing.  Click here for a printable coupon.  This month’s door prizes include a bottle of top shelf  Casa Noble tequila donated by Otto Hoernig, a Delft Virginia Tobacco Jar by Doris Leadbetter with Keller Williams Realty and a gift basket donated by Dominion Title of Great Falls.  Thanks to Todd Jarvies, Operating Partner at PF Changs Restuarant for adding an additional door prize of a $50 gift certificate for PF Changs Restaurant in Tyson’s Corner. 

I hope you can make it.