March 2020 Newsletter

Enjoy a Free Audio Download on Us

Move America Forward is always looking for new and innovative ways to support our deployed troops so when author and MAF supporter DJ Colbert approached us with an offer to supply our troops and our supporters with a free audio download of her newly released historical novel The Girl with 35 Names inspired by her own family history we jumped at the chance. Read More…

Recently I had the opportunity to enjoy a great conversation with DJ about her novel, how it came to be and her generous decision to offer it free of charge to our troops and our MAF newsletter readers and supporters.

DJ and her husband Jeff, an orthopedic surgeon began their MAF journey by sending care packages to our troops. Much to their delight, they received a thank you for one of their care packages from a soldier in the Middle East who was grateful and touched to receive their generous and thoughtful gift.

According to DJ “I received a beautiful thank you note from Sgt. Jonathan Kennedy, he was in the Middle East and he was so grateful for his troops to receive the packages. It was so heart-warming and beautiful.  Just to know they arrived for the holidays was exactly what we wanted to do and we were thrilled about that. I feel like we touched a lot of people and that’s a beautiful thing.”

DJ used her creative mind to come up with an awesome idea, she was so touched by her response from Sgt. Kennedy, that she wanted to find a way to do more for the troops.  Her new novel, The Girl with 35 Names was in the process of being published and DJ just knew she would love the opportunity to share her words and story with our troops, who often find themselves on long, lonely deployments filled with many empty hours on their off-duty time.

DJ approached Scott Raab, our Outreach Director with the offer of providing access to the full audio book free of charge to our troops, well as you can imagine Scott was completely astonished by D.J.’s generous offer and from there on MAF was totally onboard with the project.

“This is about making a difference, and that’s what these men and women are doing every day.  I though it would be a nice addition to the care packages that we are sending to be able to send them the audio book for free.  I thought it would be nice to share because it is a story about all of us.”

The Girl with 35 Names was inspired by the life of DJ’s own grandmother, Mallkah who was born in a small village in Russia the late 1800’s. While our protagonist has 35 names, insistently bestowed on her by all her well-meaning relatives including grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and an assortment of other family members, in her day-to-day life, she simply goes by Molly.

 “Getting to know her in my childhood, I heard bits and pieces of her story. Of her being at home, peeling potatoes and the Cossack who comes to the door and chases her and is shooting at her as she runs away.  She swims a stream to escape and she looks down and sees she still has that potato knife in her hand.  It was one story I heard many, many times about my grandmother, and it was always so amazing to me” stated DJ.

 “My grandmother survived and married this man who was ten years older than her that she met on her wedding day. I just realized what an amazingly strong and brave woman she was and the story of how she came to this country.  I always shared this story with my kids as they were growing up, it was an important story to tell. One day it just came to me, and it came to me so quickly, that I just sat at my computer and poured it out. It became this magical story of who we are, what a name means, what our history means and how we are informed by that.”

D.J.’s own father fought in WWII and her father-in-law served with the draft board during WWII and beyond and DJ really values this country and the freedom it affords its citizens.

According to DJ, “All the things that we have is because we have a strong defense system and a commitment to liberty and all that means.” DJ clearly values our troops and their mission and because of that she felt it would be important to allow MAF, the troops we support and our donors the opportunity to learn the story of Molly and challenge us to explore our own family stories as well.

Thanks to DJ Colbert and her tireless team headed up by Andrew Bradigan, we are honored to offer our troops, our supporters and newsletter readers the free audio download of The Girl with 35 Names read by actress, singer and writer Gilli Messer.

Click here to download the entire audio book!

In addition to providing the free download to our troops and supporters, DJ is donating the profits from her books to various charities including Move America Forward.

Thank you DJ Colbert, your family and your team for your generous support of our troops! We encourage all our readers to enjoy the audio book and please take the time to thanks D.J. for her generosity on the social media platforms for The Girl with 35 Names.

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1256 boxes in 3 hours – a new record! Thanks Fusion Elite

Thanks to the volunteer crew from Fusion Elite Training Center, we crushed our previous packing record and set a new record of 1,256 boxes in 3 hours! We can certainly see there training and discipline has paid off! Read More…

A huge part of our success at MAF is our ability to tap into our volunteer resources to help us pack and ship our amazing care packages to our troops. Whether our troops are hoping to receive some new cushy boot socks, an amazing box of precious Girl Scout cookies or some fresh coffee to enjoy with their morning briefing or just to read a heartfelt message of support from home and more, we simply could not deliver without the dedicated community support we receive from our many volunteer partners.

Fusion Elite Performance Training Center volunteers led by their sensei Joey, the head guy in other words, and a very awesome dude with multiple black belts, really delivered with volunteers including Fusions Elite members, instructors and staff. Fusion Elite volunteered in February and are MAF volunteer alumni with several packing sessions under their belts, some black some white and some in between!

When MAF has a big shipment to fulfill, we know we can count on Fusion Elite. They come out when we need a really good group to come in and help. They are always super positive, dedicated and know how to work had and fast, a winning combination!

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Fusion Elite Performance Training Center is Northern California\’s hottest new one stop family training facility. Who offer lessons in martial arts, BJJ, MMA, Boxing, Muay Thai, Fitness, Plyometrics, Dance, Music and More! You can even check out their website for more information. www.fusionelite.net

Honoring the Life of Orson Bean

I am very sad to hear about the tragic passing of Orson Bean on Friday, February 7, 2020. Not only was Orson a great actor and entertainer, but he was a staunch supporter of the troops. Read More…

Orson Bean attended our annual Troopathon telethon, along with his son-in-law and Troopathon co-host Andrew Breitbart, to celebrate our American military by raising money for care packages to send to military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. Orson was a great guest on Troopathon as well as a generous donor of MAF’s care package program.

The last time I saw Orson was 2012, during Andrew Breitbart’s devastating memorial service in Los Angeles. He was as charming as ever, taking it upon himself to make sure all of the family’s invited guests were comfortable and sharing stories of Andrew’s life and enormous influence upon so many of us.

And now they are both gone.

All of the staff at Move America Forward will remember Orson Bean for his extensive patriotic support for our troops. His passing is devastating for his family, and for our pro-troop community as well.

– Melanie Morgan, Chairwoman of MAF

How does Amazon Smile Work?

Move America Forward continues partnering with Amazon.com and participating in their Amazon Smile Non-Profit Program, where Amazon donates a portion of whatever you order to MAF so we can send even more support packages to our troops! Read more…

Want a super easy way to maximize your troops support? One easy way you can make donating simple is to select Move America Forward as the charity you would like to support and a small portion of what you buy on Amazon.com is then automatically donated to MAF. No extra cost to you, just extra support for our brave defenders for buying the things you normally would.

Millions of Americans already use Amazon to purchase clothes, books and movies to tech gadgets, or almost anything you can think of. Chances are, if you\’ve ever bought anything on-line, you have probably used Amazon.com at least once or twice.

Now with Amazon Smile, you can support Move America Forward at no cost to you, by doing all your regular shopping with Amazon Smiles. Your gifts will cost nothing extra, but a portion of the sales will be donated by AMAZON to the troops via MAF!

Simply go to smile.amazon.com and login with your existing Amazon account or create a new one using your preferred email. Yo need to search for and select Move America Forward from the charity list and select it, then when you ship amazon, be sure to login through their smile.amazon.com page.

Prices are the same, shipping is the same, and nothing changes except Amazon donates .05% of your purchase TO THE TROOPS on your behalf!

To highlight Amazon\’s commitment to our troops, Amazon team members recently came to our Sacramento headquarters to host a packing party of care packages bound for our troops. Thanks to all the Amazon team members who participated. We appreciate your support, so do our troops!

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