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May 17, 2004

Call for Recipes

Claudia Thomas, another proud Marine Corps Mom is putting together a recipe book to raise funds for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS) and the Woman Marine Association (WMA). If you have a favorite recipe - or two or three - that you'd like to share for a very worthy cause, please write or type it on a form that can be downloaded here. All recipes must be submitted on this form in order to keep the cookbook publishers happy.

For instructions on where to mail the completed forms and to order cookbooks - $15 plus $3 shipping - contact Claudia at ProudUSMCmom@aol.com. I'm sending in a couple of recipes that have taken first place in recipe contests and that I have not shared previously. It's for a great cause - share your recipes and then order the cookbook! Or, just order the cookbook. It's all good.

Here's Claudia's story:

Click on Continue Reading to find out what Claudia has to say:

My son joined the Marines about four and a half years ago. In one of his first ''drill letters", there was a note asking for spouses to volunteer for the Key Volunteer Network I didn't call, but hung on to the letter for a month. Finally, I called. I explained that I knew that they had asked for spouses, and I was "just" a Mom, but I recognized how hard it is to get anyone to volunteer for things these days and if they ever needed help I would be more than willing. It turned out that I was the only one who called! (It also turned out that the Key Volunteer Network is NOT limited to spouses.) For approximately two years, our KVN consisted of the person who had originally asked for help and myself.

Since that time I have recruited and trained a number of volunteers to assist me in my duties. Interestingly enough, my hardest working and most dependable volunteers are Moms as well! The Key Volunteer Network, and our various positions within it, are created and mandated by Marine Corps Orders. We have many responsibilities, and if you would like more info on it, just let me know.

I am the Key Volunteer Coordinator for the Marine Wing Support Group-47. I keep my team quite active. I do like to do fundraisers to support our local Marines and originally that is what I thought this idea would be. While still in my own investigative and planning stages of this, I realized that this project could be used to generate donations to organizations that help our service men and women when they need it most. Rather than use this endeavor to raise money for a Family Day event or a Birthday Ball, I thought that it had the potential to really make a difference in some lives. I researched nonprofits that benefit our military families and found that these two in particular provide the services that, if I could, I would want to be able to do. For example, the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS) is an organization that families can turn to in extreme financial crisis. Can you imagine, after serving your country, you fall into hard times and can't afford funeral expenses, or your family has no money for food, what if you faced being thrown out into the street with your children? What if there is a medical emergency but you can't get help because you don't have the financial resources? I believe that WE owe it to those who have served our country to help them out. By raising money to donate to the NMCRS I/WE can do that, and, isn't that awesome?

The Women?s Marine Association (WMA) has programs that include taking care of patients in the VA Hospitals, sending packages to our troops overseas, finding "adoptive parents" for Marines overseas who have no one back home writing to them, scholarship programs for our Marines? children. These are all things I would love to do myself but no one person can do it all. I can, though, come up with this cookbook idea, convince my team to participate, and then use every possible avenue to spread the word.

My goal is to produce a beautiful cookbook with (approximately) 500 recipes, raise enough money through donations to cover the publishing cost (I am personally liable for that, it's my signature on the order form!), and sell at least one thousand copies. I know that it can be done if we all try our hardest. If we do just what I've outlined above, we will raise $15,000.00! If everyone really pushes these cookbooks we could make even more.

My son honors me by being a Marine. He will receive his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant on July 23rd, 2004. My son is a pilot. He will soon be going to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola for his flight school training. I do what I do to honor not only my son, but all our sons and daughters.

There's no better cheerleader than a mom. Especially a Marine Corps Mom.

UPDATE: The downloaded Word document isn't working, so our wonderful webmaster first converted it to a PDF file and now he working on making it a fill-out form. Thanks, Sean!!

Posted by Deb at May 17, 2004 01:24 AM

Comments

I've downloaded the form, but it doesn't want to open. Could someone double check that the file is working? Thanks!

Posted by: TulipGirl at May 17, 2004 09:15 AM

Our webmaster is looking into this. Until it's fixed, please e-mail Claudia or me (deb at marinecorpsmoms dot com) for the file.

Posted by: Deb at May 17, 2004 11:46 AM