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| Houston Veteran’s Day Parade |
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The high regard for men and women serving in our country’s armed forces just gets stronger and stronger as witnessed by the Houston Marine Moms as they marched in the 2005 parade. Following participation in the 2006 parade the Houston Marine Moms held a “Support Our Troops Rally”. It is a wonderful feeling knowing that the citizens of Houston are supportive of our sons and daughters and the sacrifices they make. We march because our sons and daughters can’t be here and we look forward to the day when they will march in these parades along side of us.
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| Marek Elementary Students Assist Houston Marine Moms |
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To honor Veteran’s Day on November 11, 2007, approximately 900 students at Mary Marek Elementary in Pearland, Texas created posters to honor our Veterans and displayed them on a Wall of Honor in the school hallways. Marine Veteran and school Nurse Julia Wooley spoke to the children about what it means to be a Veteran.
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The students also wrote letters of appreciation to the troops and participated in a “Pennies for Postage” drive. The funds from the drive along with the letters were donated to the Houston Marine Moms organization to help with the Holiday Packing held on December 3rd. The letters were included in the care packages and the money donated helped with the costs of postage.
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The young men and women at Marek Elementary represent our leaders of tomorrow. Because of outstanding leadership from teachers like Cynthia Rosero and others who work with her, these students understand the importance of our Veterans. The Houston Marine Mom organization applauds Mary Marek Elementary and their students and teachers for their contributions to our men and women protecting our country.
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| Houston Oilman’s Association |
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The Oilman’s Hill Country Ride grew out of the thoughts of a group of friends, thrown around at a campfire after a weekend of riding Texas Hill Country roads in the Spring of 2004. The riders decided it would be a great idea to hold a ride and rally to raise money to support the fighting men and women of the U.S. military branches, and so formed the Oilman’s Hill Country Ride. The ride was conceived as an invitational event at which oilfield folks could come together for fun and charity. The Houston Marine Moms have benefited greatly from those rides and have sent care packages and equipment to our front line troops with the generous help of the Oilman’s Association.
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| AT&T Motorcycle Ride |
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The AT&T Motorcycle Run for the Troops began in San Antonio in 2005 as a fun ride for the employees and members of the Pioneer Club, and to provide some benefit to the local community. 2006 grew to include Houston, Waco, Ft. Worth, Dallas and Austin. 2007’s ride had over 200 pre-registered riders from the various locations, and culminated in a lunch of barbeque in Nolanville, Texas to honor our military. A group of soldiers from nearby Ft. Hood, the 46th Chemical Brigade commanded by Col V. P. Visser was on hand to present the colors and meet the riders. The Houston Marine Moms have been the beneficiary of the Houston AT&T Pioneer Riders’ donations for 2006 and 2007.
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| Houston Area Girl Scouts |
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Various Girl Scout Troops from the Houston area have donated an abundance of cookies to our troops. Since 2005, the Houston Marine Moms have mailed over 1,600 cases (19,200 boxes) of Girl Scout cookies to all branches of the military. Donations from Starbuck’s and Maxwell House coffee have allowed us the opportunity to include coffee in some of the boxes mailed to our troops.
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| Houston Area Post Offices Support the Troops |
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The Houston-area Post Office put boxes in all of their stations to collect phone cards to send to the troops. Between Thanksgiving, 2004 and April 2005 the Houston Marine Moms have mailed out over 10,000 donated phone cards.
When our troops get a phone card, they will skip eating, sleeping…everything to stand in line for up to THREE hours to make that phone call home. Here’s a photo of one of the places in Iraq where they stand in line to make these calls.
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| Cakes in a Jar |
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The Houston Marine Moms learned about baking cakes in jars in 2006. Coordinating with a downtown Houston industrial kitchen who volunteered their time, employees and equipment, the moms were called to duty, and almost 300 jars of cakes were baked, packed with pre-made cans of frosting, and shipped to our deployed servicemen and women. Recalled to action in 2007, the moms more than doubled their previous efforts, and baked approx 650 cakes, shipping out well over 150 boxes. The cakes in a jar have become a favorite event for the moms as well as those who receive them while in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan and other foreign deployments.
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| Local Area Schools |
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The Houston Marine Moms work with local area schools. Haude Elementary School in Klein ISD collected “Pennies for Postage” and donated over $1,300. Schindewolf Middle School Book Club donated $500 that was used to buy cool ties to send to Marine units in order to help keep them cool. And to make the holidays brighter for our troops, the YES Preparatory School students at the Southeast campus decorated holiday trees for our men and women serving in Iraq/Afghanistan.
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| Memorial Day, 2004 |
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The Houston Marine Moms worked in conjunction with our local CBS affiliate for a Support Our Troops Drive. The citizens of Houston donated over 39,000 pounds of items for the troops. To date, the Houston Marine Moms have shipped out over 6,235 boxes to our troops.
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| Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison |
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The Houston Marine Moms worked with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and delivered five pallets of items to the soldiers’ families at Ft. Hood. This allowed the wives and moms of the Army soldiers deployed from that base to take some of the donated items and send them to their loved ones.
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| Operation Helmet |
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The brainchild of Robert Meaders, MD, Capt, Medical Corps, USN-Retired, Operation Helmet has supplied over 36,600 helmet inserts to many of our fighting men and women serving in all branches of our military. The helmets were engineered to protect against 'ballistics' (bullets) and have only fair protection from blast forces and fragment impacts from IED's and other types of newly appreciated combat dangers. The new inserts were found it to be a very worthwhile product, capable of converting fatal impacts into ones that might daze a body, but would leave them alive and fighting. The Houston Marine Moms have helped to raise awareness, and donated funds to assist Doc Meaders in his mission of getting these inserts to as many as of our troops as possible. For more information on the inserts, please see the following website:
http://www.operation-helmet.org/
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