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Founders Message
Some may say that the casualty of war is part
of the "job" and that the choice was made during the enlistment
process. The choice was made, to protect and defend our Country and the
rights of all citizens who call the United States of America "home".
However, were it not for the courage of our
brave service men and women and veterans of past we would not be in a
position to voice our feelings as freedom would allow.
All the liberties enjoyed during every moment
of our lives are "gifted" and guaranteed by these brave service men and
women. Our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandparents as well as
ourselves have been given a true "gift" of love and courage, while
these military families have sacrificed their future happiness and
suffered a loss so tremendous that no one will ever fill the empty void
that is forever left behind
 What
happens when our military families yellow ribbons come down off their
trees and mailboxes and are replaced by flags lowered to half-staff?
The lives of many spouses, children, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters
and all other family members of service men and women lost to
the casualty of war are changed dramatically within moments
of that dreaded notification that their loved one will not be
coming home. One miniscule moment of happiness is replaced by
many more days of sadness and the hope that all would be fine
as their loved one would be returning to them safe and sound
is forever lost and filled with an empty void.
There is so much emphasis placed on our political beliefs ~
who does what, who is doing what...what was done and then again
we all have our opinions of what should have been done. Do you
think our service member overseas is concerned about politics?
They are concerned about their loved ones and with good reason.
Their loved ones, many under the age of 18 miss, love and worry
daily whether their father or mother will return home and whether
they are safe.
Many of our celebrities and leaders may not know or share the
stories of our military and their families, but if you were
to consider this - how many holidays, celebrations, weddings,
birthdays, and unfortunately births of your own have you missed?
How many celebrations, holidays, birthdays and then unfortunate
losses in your own family can you withstand for twelve (12)
months at a time? Consider this, a young man enlists in the
Army or Marines - he is in boot camp and training when he meets
the girl of his dreams. They marry before deployment, he finds
out that his wife is expecting and the anguish begins. This
young man loses his life - neglects to change the beneficiary
of his life insurance policy and his wife, son or daughter then
must move off base, try to get themselves together after the
burial and then move on. Their grief is so great that they cannot
move forward. There is no life insurance benefits for his family;
his wife has been attending college with the help of her husband's
income and must now stop, their child is in need of the essential
basics of life, has lost his father and the family is now living
a life of poverty.
No matter what comforts of home we send to our troops -we can
never replace the days and months lost with their families during
their deployments. We can never replace the gift of life, however,
we can help and comfort the children and spouses of our fallen
and wounded service members by easing their financial hardships
and honoring the life of our American Heroes. These children
need our help and they need to know that we will stand by them.This
is the American way and it's time we stand up and prepare ourselves
for reality. God Bless and comfort our families during their
times of grief.
I always am asked why? Why did my youngest son decide to enlist
in the Army, why did my nephew, my father, uncles and grandfathers
and yours? Did they do so for the money, for the benefits,
in order to get some help with their education, for discipline,
for honor, for our country, for their own family or were they
drafted? Does it matter that each and everyone of us are able
to peruse this site and others because of them? It matters to
me and it matters to my family. Each of us have our own reasons
and make our own choices in life; some good some bad. I did
it because it broke my heart each and every time I packaged
items to send to troops overseas just thinking about them, the
danger they were in and their families back home; every day
and night as I watched the news and wondered where my own son
was, when and if ever we would hear from him again, each night
as I laid awake and asked God to protect him, his comrades and
all our service members and their own families, each night as
I watched his Dad look out our own living room window only to
realize seven months after his deployment that he was looking
in fear for the men in uniform to approach our front door and
each evening as we watched as another casualty was shown. I
did it then and I'll continue to do so for the families of our
brave service men and women for they would want someone to be
there for their own. My son came home, he may even go back and
the fear of losing him will return. I can only hope and pray
that I can be more prepared if there is another time for him,
but I don't believe any of us are ever prepared ~ who was prepared
on September 11th? Were you?
These children are young, they are hurting and full of grief.
Read about and look at young, Christian
and you'll know why. When you get the chance watch this
video
by 15 year old, Lizzie Palmer, also and hopefully you too will
know why. Photo by Aaron Thompson
Read here
about my friend, SPC Gregory Stovall who served overseas with my son
and made his own sacrifice when their convoy was hit. I had the
opportunity to meet and spend some quality time with Gregory who spoke
of how he was anxious to get back to Baghdad with his guys. That
day they lost Sgt. Francisco Martinez. What more can I say?
Read Newsweek 3/21/05 edition about the children affected
Our progress
and changes during 2009 and 2010:
We have gone through some important
changes in our programs the last couple of years. Not only have
we expanded our home base to included a location in Southwest
Florida for the purpose of reaching out to more surviving and
disabled or wounded veterans and their families, but we have
included some crucial programs. Not many people realize that
our initial "thought" was to help only one or two
surviving fallen servicemember's children with college funding;
that was then seven months after the Iraq war, OIF, began. These
conflicts have taken the lives of more than 6,600 of our servicemembers
and over 46,500 have been reportedly wounded as a result of
their service overseas. Many of our wounded and disabled veterans
are returning home with severely disabling disorders and are
unable to care for themselves let alone their families. The
influx in wounded veterans is a large cause for concern as their
needs are many. Not only has our economy devastated many who
have served financially, their dreams and hopes of a better
future for them and their families are shattered. Many of these
families are becoming homeless, finding themselves in food lines
at local food banks and unable to continue caring for their
families as now their families must find ways to care for the
one person they could count on, our American soldier, marine,
air, land and sea service member. Many other government and
charitable agencies and organizations are discouraged as their
is only so much that they can do to help these families and
that is why we decided to "pick up" where others have
left off.
Our programs have expanded
to include the First Gulf war surviving and disabled veteran
and his or her children and depending on the funds available
in our Adopt A Family program there are times when we are able
to help the single servicemember as well. We have opened up
our Adopt A Family program year round to assist our veterans
and their families that fall in what we call the "gray
area". Children and veterans that
have no resources to help them during their time of need can
now come to us for help and the need is tremendous. We are helping
our military when no help could be found and many are being
referred by government agencies, other charitable organizations
and through the VA.
Our AAF (Adopt A Family) program
that was begun in 2006 at the request of many of our donors
was started only
to assist our families that have minor children during the Holiday
season. The sponsoring or adoptive individuals, groups, businesses,
churches, etc. have been overly generous by providing them with
food, clothing and gift items to ensure that these children
could enjoy some of what they had before their father or mother
died. This program has allowed our organization to match donors
or sponsoring families with our own military families during
the Holiday months, typically beginning in October through December.
Sponsoring or adoptive families, businesses, churches, etc.
could donate funds specifically to be used for presents, gift
cards and to help with food, utilities bills and other important
hardships that our children were facing. There are times when
we are able to match a sponsoring family with one of our military
families and they could shop from the children's own "wish
list" and wrap and mail the gifts to our children. However,
it takes six to eight weeks to gather and share these lists
with our sponsors and unfortunately we lack the volunteerism
to continually try to make every sponsoring or adoptive individual
person or business satisfied with a family in their own city,
town or State. Our families and their children are our first
concern and we spend hours and days gathering information to
assist just one family and it is difficult for us to try to
please every sponsoring families request. In 2011 we are asking
for donations that will be used to provide gifts or gifts cards
at major department stores and for many of our families groceries,
diapers and other essentials and gift cards for the surviving
spouses who we feel deserve to know that they too are remembered
by others who care.
One of our most important changes
is the ability to help our families during real emergency situations
with a 24-72 hour turn around time. The emergency program provides
financial assistance to our families and does have a maximum
limit of $2500.00.
Those with needs that exceed our
limit are decided by our Grant Committee who meet six times
a year. We are constantly receiving phone calls or referrals
from our military and government agencies and offices and helping
our families retain housing, purchase food and supplies for
their children and keep their families electricity, heat and
air conditioning on by paying their utility bills that are due
to be turned off. Emergencies can occur for all of us and when
one of our own veterans who served and dies deserves to be honored
and respected as does his or her family. We can share many examples
of our families in need, but one in particular stands out and
that is a phone call that came from an Army agency whereas one
of our soldiers who served over 19 years had had his home that
he was living in with his wife and three children sold from
underneath them. He and his wife decided to relocate as they
had nowhere to go and packed up and moved back to his military
base area. They rented lodging near his base and on the fifth
day woke up and began preparing to look at the local homes and
apartments available for rent, this service member had his coffee
and collapsed, he died that day in front of his wife and children.
Now imagine the devastation and loss, then imagine this wife
with no real funds left to bury her husband. We received a phone
call and stepped in so that he could have a proper burial, the
most amazing thing was that the funeral home brought the costs
down to what they would have incurred and he was buried with
honors in a place where he had felt safe during his military
service.
I cannot express the gratitude and
compassion I feel for our service men and women and their children
any more than I do here with the CFSRF and I have our wonderful
and many continual individuals, organizations, businesses and
firms to thank for allowing us to continue providing a "gift"
back to those who have served.
Our total revenues in 2009 and 2010
were $580,936.00 and $493,531.00. We continue to maintain a
low management/administrative ratio and have managed to add
a full-time salaried officer and one or two occasional part-time
staff during the year. With the expansion of a full-time office
in Sarasota, Florida we are reaching out to our local surviving
and disabled families here as well as continue helping our families
Nationwide.
Our secretary, Mrs. Monica
Jones has been a wonderful asset and continues to handle much
of our daily business, continues to grow our home office in
Maryland and handles one of the most important jobs we have
during the Fall, which is meeting with Federal government agencies
during the CFC Campaign. She is constantly on the move
meeting with our wonderfully generous event holders and sponsors
back home, has her own family is on the local committee of a
Boys and Girls Club, is the team Mom and juggles football, basketball
and baseball and her own family. There are no words that can
express my gratitude and love for all that Monica has done for
the Children of Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund and our families,
but let me just say this Mona you are our own very "secret
weapon".
May God continue to bless our military
and their families and may all who continue to support us and
our important "works" know how much our families appreciate
your love, patriotism and support.
What the end
of 2008 has brought:
Total revenues were $452,875.00 our
revenue to management/administrative ratio was 7.9% and with
the help of our wonderful sponsoring partners and the public
we provided $56,423.00 in financial assistance and continued
to help our College students with $8,744.00 in scholarships.
This year ended sadly we managed to reach out to more families
in mailings however, our applicants did not complete the paperwork
required, would decide not to finish their schooling or were
unable to show that a real financial hardship existed. We are
here to help the families in need and could use a volunteer
that is able to concentrate on helping us get information out
to those in need. Our economy has suffered greatly and with
the loss of employment and housing we hope more families are
made aware of our organization. May the coming years bring us
better economical times.
What the end
of 2007 has brought:
Total revenues were $520,566.00 our
revenue to management/administrative ratio was 3.6% and with
the help of our wonderful sponsoring partners and the public
we provided $95,066.00 in financial assistance and continued
to help our College students with $20,500.00 in scholarships.
Funds distributed with gift cards, help with gifts, food, clothing
and utilities for our Adopt A Family special program ensured
that our children had a little merrier holiday due to the thoughtfulness
of their sponsoring families, friends, co-workers and associates.
We continue to ask that others spread the word amongst the military
community so that those in need can come forward for assistance.
What the end
of 2006 has brought:
Total revenues were $234, 196.00
our revenue to management/administrative ratio was 4.8% this
year. With the help of our wonderful sponsoring partners and
the public we awarded eight educational scholarships and five
financial grants in the first three quarters 2006. Unfortunately
no applicants applied during the last quarter so please share
our organization with those you feel may have a need.
We continue to see a wide interest of support and have many
firms, schools, churches, other non-profits and many more individuals
to thank this year. Many of them who have held their own fundraisers,
some were surprises and others came to us and asked how they
could help. We offer our gratitude to everyone involved for
you and we enjoy sharing our mission as we partner together
to make a difference in our service member families. For any
of our contributors that are interested in sharing our program
with those in your area, please contact us for there are many
volunteer possibilities throughout the States. Our relationships
with our families continue to grow as do our passions to help
them during their time of need. Here are some of our corporate
and business sponsors: Star Touring & Riding, Chapter 469,
ACE Duraflo Pipe Restoration, Jim Raby, Green Beans Coffee,
Chardonnay Golf Club, Old River Truck Sales, Real Tax Business
Success, Feed Your Soul, Clark Pinnacle, Ravinia Club, DLA Piper
employees, Marriott Corporation employees, employees of Congressman
K. Michael Conway, Harold & Janet Knight Family Fund, Cornerstone
Government Affairs, TSS Marketing, The Craven Family Foundation,
and others; Ohio University Alpha Phi Omega members, and K.
McCoy Insurance Agency. There are too many to list here and
some that ask to remain private. Again, a large amount of fundraisers
this past year! Tony Hunter who ran in the Bull Run 50 Mile
marathon, Michael, a young scout who wanted to do something
special for other children, North Eastern High School's (Clarksville,
TN) "Eagles on the Homefront's" "5 Miles For
Familes of the Fallen", Ohio University 5k, Kennesaw State
Poker Tournament, "Leather, Linen, Chrome, Crystal &
Comedy Bike Ride", St. Alphonsus School's Dress Down Day,
East Coloma 4th Grade Auction, Fallen Heros Charity Event, Clark
Pinnacle Golf Classic, Operation Mend A Heart, Endurance 100
"Ride For Life", Pool 4 School, Op Appreciate Freedom,
Pro Tax Boot Camp, CSP Holiday Caroling Event, K McCoy Inc.
Insurance Agency Holiday Fundraiser and Operation Send A Hug
by members of the First Congregational Church of Swanzey, NH.
Now I know some may be missing and apologize that we can't list
them all here, but I think each and every person knows how much
we appreciate them.
I must talk a little bit about Operation Send A Hug. There
are times when we are asked to do something that is not part
of our mission and we have yet to say no for when it comes to
our families we'll do what we can to help. This is what happened
with Operation Send A Hug, members of the FCC wanted to hand
stuff teddy bears for our surviving children and were having
a difficult time finding an organization that could get these
lovingly, soft, cuddly little bears to the children...well,
we don't know how to say no and how could we? When our first
shipment of teddies came in and the first box was opened, tears
began to flow. The love and compassion that came out of that
first box is something that no one could imagine...these wonderful
teddies are being hand delivered on a regular basis to our surviving
children and brings them joy when grief is at it's most overwhelming
point, during the service of their father or mother. We just
had our very first, First Grade Class hand stuff their own teddies
on Sami's "Beary Special Day" during the week of Memorial
Day 2007. These young 6 and 7 year olds very lovingly stuffed
teddies for another child that was sad and wrote their own loving
notes for their friends. Many of these teddies will be shipped
thousands of miles away in the hopes of bringing a smile and
a big hug from one child to another. Thank you FCC members and
friends for sending your hugs our way!
We also had a lot of inquiries as other families wanted to
provide gifts to our families this past holiday season. By carefully
matching children with other children, families with families
and individuals with families and spouses we were able to listen
and help with the true meaning of giving as presents were sent
to families, many who could not afford to fulfill even the smallest
gifts for their children. The Adopt A Family program went off
without a hitch and many of the families began relationships
with others that care about their well-being.
So many people ask me why? If you could see my smile and feel
the smiles of those we serve, then you would certainly know
the answer. The best thing you can give in life is part of yourself
and when you give part of yourself to others it fulfills so
many dreams that may have just been that. I give thanks to all
our service members and their families for without them we would
not be able to reach our dreams.
What the end
of 2005 has brought:
Total
revenues from events and donations for the year ending 2005
were $110,213.00
As we continue with our mission to provide emotional
and financial support to our military families affected by a
loss we find that more and more members of the public are opening
their hearts by reaching out to find ways to support our troops
and their families. Not only was there an increase in individual
and corporate donations, but there was also an interest as others
chose to raise donations from members within their community
specifically to help our fallen service member families. Posh
Nite-Club, Golf Courses in Texas, Earl's 26.2 mile marathon
mission, Operation Enduring Obligation, Mayflower Foundation's
Summer Gala, the Loonbird Charity Event, ATN's Charity Event,
Real Hoboken's Event and others planned, surprised and joined
in celebrating the American Hero and their families. Some of
these contributors asked if they could raise funds to help families
from within their State and found it much more rewarding knowing
they could do so through our organization.
We began to receive our
first applications in 2005 and awarded two College Scholarships.
The children of our fallen troops are
affected as they try to maintain employment, continue with their
education and struggle to keep up college loans. We strive to
help those in need and work towards alleviating their hardships
by providing scholarships that will help maintain their goals
and keep their parent's dream alive. Even the smallest amount
helps and this is the least we can do to help our surviving
military children. It is also a way to honor the memory of their
father or mother, the true American Hero!
Many of our military spouses have been
working hard to gain their degrees, however, find that after
their husband or wife is gone not only are they dealing with
their loss, but find that their dreams are more difficult to
achieve. We hope to be able to continue with our College Scholarship
program and encourage those in need to apply.
In 2005 our first applications
for financial assistance were received as well and with your
help we helped five struggling families.
Some of our families are without heat, have major
home repairs, cannot afford to attend memorial services for
their spouses, need help with dental or medical expenses, move
off base and can't afford moving expenses, first and last months
rent and many chose to move back home with their parents in
order to save the funds necessary to provide safe and adequate
housing for their children. We would like to help every family
that applies, however, must continue to help those that display
a true financial hardship and those whose hardships directly
affect their children. As our funds grow so will our programs!
Thank you to all who make
all our programs possible and who continue to share their kindness
with the families of our military! We are honored to be able
to honor their loved one's sacrifices and do so on behalf of
our wonderful contributors!
Lastly, we are proud to report that our revenues
to expense ratio for the year ending 2005 was 3%.
What
the end of 2004 has brought:
Total revenues from events and donations for the year ending 2004 were $50,173.39
With the beginning of a New Year and change of
seasons, I am happy to announce that the last month of 2004 brought
forth much love and support from many families and some of the
businesses within our Nation. We received two large donations of
$15,000 and $5,000 from separate businesses the end of December and
we received many Christmas donations from families whose decision or
childrens decision was to provide help to the children and families of
our fallen military.
Two young boys raised funds by selling their grandfather's
honey to others. Ella who is only 3 years old asked that the
Christmas gift that would be spent on her present go to another
child, as well as 12 year old Kaylee, 15 year old Maven and
many other young children.
These words were written from some of the families:
"We decided as a family to donate
money to an organization that would help support our soldiers and
their families. I have a wonderful father and I love him very much, I
cannot imagine going through life without him. My small yet
heartfelt donation is in no way a sacrifice for me, but an honor and
privilege to help those who will go through life without their fathers.
I am grateful for the country we live in for the men and women who have
sacrificed their lives for our freedom and the freedom of others."
Families from Arizona, California, Florida,
the District of Columbia, Maine, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan,
Georgia, Indiana, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Colorado, Virginia
and North Carolina. Many hearts came together to pay tribute to
our wonderful service men and women, and to honor their sacrifices that
enable us to remain free. We are a wonderful nation and when we band
together we can make a difference to our military families.
Thank all of you for your "gifts" this Holiday
season and for those that may take offense, I am sorry that
I cannot apologize for the families that donated their Christmas
gift monies to other families in more need. Many families in
this nation have celebrated Christ and Christmas for many years,
and no one can take that from us, just as there are those that
celebrate Hanukkah and Kwanza we should all celebrate in
our traditional manners and in peace.
Merry Christmas to all of our Troops
and May God Bless and Keep You All Safe!
Rebecca Campbell, Founder
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