This Christmas, 'Thank You': Hope and Friendship Foundation

During the month of October I asked you to donate Care Box items that we would send to loved ones from families of our community that are deployed and serving our country overseas.

The Vault Cafe and Bar (located at 308 Canal St, in Downtown Lemont) joined with me in offering to help rally funds to cover the cost of postage to mail as many care boxes as we could fill to those overseas.

On Saturday November 7th, during our Winter Clothing and Kitchen Item Give Away, Tonya Trujillo (a wife of one of our deployed serviceman) led our youth in creating 9 Care Boxes from your donations of personal care products, snacks, and requested items.

Those Care Boxes were labelled and sent out ”From Lemont with Love” hoping to bring smiles to faces of loved ones that are held near and dear in heart but caring out duty and commitment so far away.

I received a thank you note and picture from one of our local servicemen and wanted to share this with you. Alec LaChappell received his Care Box and wanted to express his gratitude for keeping him in thought, heart and prayer.

I want to thank Alec for his service to our country. I know his father Mark is so very proud of him and I hope he knows how proud I and this community is of him for what he is offering to us and to all of those who reside comfortably exercising so many freedoms here in the United States of America. I told Alec I would love to buy him a meal at The Vault when he returns home and he said he will take me up on that. I look forward to telling him personally how much I admire and appreciate his courage and valor.

I hope you will also take the time to thank those who have served, are serving or are on call to serve (reserves) at whatever day or hour they are called. When you sit down for your Christmas Dinner please remember those who are so far away from their family table, and for those at that table who are dearly missing their loved one’s presence.

As we exit the ninth day before our Hope and Friendship Foundation Christmas Dinner outreach I wanted to extend this sincere appreciation to Alec, to Rich (Tonya’s husband), and to all of our Lemont loved ones who have made it a priority to serve and protect us as we scurry around readying for the day that celebrates life, love, family and peace on earth.

I will coordinate another of these outreaches after the first of the year and invite you to inform me of others who might enjoy being the recipient of a Care Box filled with TLC ”From Lemont with Love”. Email me at terri@hopeandfriendshipfoundation.com with addresses of those we can send care boxes to, or to get on the email list for these and all of Hope and Friendship Foundation Outreaches throughout the year.

One day closer on the journey toward Christmas.

www.hopeandfriendshipfoundation.com

Email info@hopeandfriendshipfoundation.com for more information on how to join in on making ripples.