May 2021 Newletter - Move America Forward

May is Military Appreciation Month

May is officially designated as Military Appreciation Month, a special time to focus on and thank those who serve our nation. Several special days in May highlight our troops and their impact on us all.

May includes several special dates of remembrance, celebration and thanks such as National Nurses Day which was celebrated this year on May 6, and is part of the larger Nurses week to celebrates the profession of our nation’s nurses, many of whom currently work or got their start in our service branches.

Moving further into May we found May 7^th designated as Military Spouses Appreciation Day, where all those who keep things chugging along behind the scenes are acknowledged and thanked.

Of course, everyone loves celebrating our great mom\’s the second Sunday of May. Many of our deployed troops are mother\’s and grandmother\’s so we hope you took the time to make sure they were honored and not forgotten as they served far from home on Mother\’s Day.

Mid-month finds us celebrating Armed Forces Day on May 15^th, established in the 1940’s as a single day to celebrate all branches of service and a time for us to focus attention on all the good our troops do on our behalf.

We round out May with the solemn remembrance of Memorial Day, which falls on Monday, May 31. Memorial day is a special time to pause and acknowledge the sacrifice of those who have given their lives in service to our country.

There are many businesses and organizations who are offering special and deals for our military members and veterans during May. We wanted to take a moment to highlight Ace Hardware, Ace is partnering with the VFW this year to honor our fallen heroes for Memorial Day by giving away 1 million American Flags nationwide at participating Ace Hardware store on May 29, 2021. Consumers who visit an Ace Hardware store on May 29 will receive a free 8\” x 12\” American Flag and a second flag will be donated to a local VFW post to be used for marking and honoring veterans\’ graves.

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“Ace is proud to be a part of this nationwide effort to distribute flags to our customers and to the VFW to
help honor our fallen heroes on Memorial Day,” said Kim Lefko, Chief Marketing Officer, Ace Hardware.
“With Ace stores easily accessible to millions of Americans, we wanted to step up and provide a way for
our customers, and our store owners and associates, to pay tribute to our military men and women who
made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”

“The American flag giveaway aligns with Ace Hardware’s long history of supporting veterans
nationwide,” added Lefko. “Ace’s very name is a commemoration of the “flying aces,” the courageous
fighter pilots from World War I. Ace’s patriotism continues through the support of its veteran retailers,
and the sincere appreciation for all the veterans and active-duty military who work in Ace stores,
distribution centers, and its corporate offices.”
*Flags will be available at participating Ace stores while quantities last. Limit one 8” x 12” flag per
customer. No purchase necessary.

If you get a chance stop by your local Ace Hardware on May 29, to pick up your own personal American flag, you will feel good knowing that a local VFW is also receiving a flag just like your to honor the grave of one of our many American veterans who have so proudly served.

Congress established May as National Military Appreciation Month in 1999 to bring public focus and appreciation for troops who are serving or who have served in the past. Join us in showing appreciation to all our military members past and present.

Support our troops through Smile.Amazon and MAF

The pandemic restrictions may be loosening up, but the ease and convenience of online shopping is here to stay.

Last year, we found ourselves in the deepest, darkest moments of the lockdown Every trip to the store was scary, a necessary foray involving masks and gloves and hard to find hand sanitizers as we searches for elusive items like toilet paper, masks, cleaning wipes and more. Most of us found online shopping through sites like Amazon to be a real lifesaver.

In person visits were just not happening, with families learning new and daunting skills like how to conduct a Zoom call. However, when it comes to our troops, thousands of our military families already rely on video chats, and long distanced phone calls or texts as their primary means of contact with far-away family. If they do have a moment to send a gift to a love one, then in most cases, Amazon or another online shopping site would be the way to go.

MAF continues to participate 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!

It\’s simple: All you have to do is go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and select Move America Forward as the charity you would like to support and a small portion of what you buy on Amazon.com is donated to Move America Forward. No extra cost to you, just extra a support for our brave deployed troops for buying the things you normally would. It\’s a WIN-WIN!

Now with Amazon Smile, you can support Move America Forward at no cost to you, simply by buying the same things you would have bought anyway.

It\’s Cookie Time Again! Girl Scout Cookies are back!

Our troops love receiving our care packages. Just imagine all the smiles on our troops faces when they open a Move America Forward Care Package and are greeted with iconic and delicious Girl Scout Cookies!

Like new trees springing to life after a long winter\’s rest, Spring brings with it much joy and celebration and one of our favorite events of Spring are the annual Girl Scout cookie sales that take place around the country. Cookie sales at Move America means we will soon be receiving truckloads of Girl Scout cookies from Girl Scout councils near and far.

With cookies arriving by the truckload, we are able to rally our many volunteers to help us pack box after box of care packages that include Girl Scout cookies in addition to our other awesome care package items like personal care items, cushiony boot socks for hard working troops, premium coffee, beef jerky and more, capped off by a note of support from you to really brighten the day to day grind of our troops as they serve thousands of miles from home and loved ones.

If you have ever purchased Girl Scout cookies you are often given the opportunity to pay for a package of cookies that will be donated to various charities and organizations. Move America Forward is fortunate enough to be counted as one of the worthy charities that receives these donated cookies, and we in turn include them in our care packages for our troops to enjoy.

Don\’t miss out on your opportunity to treat our troop with a care package that just might include a box or two of awesome Thin Mints or classic Trefoils or one of the many Girl Scout cookies donated this cookie season.

Thank You Volunteers!

Volunteers are the life blood at Move America Forward. Over the past month, we were fortunate to host several groups of volunteers who joined us for a fun day of work prepping and packing care packages for our troops.

April saw a steady stream of dedicated volunteers from groups like the Marin Republican Women Federated, Fusion Elite Fitness ,and a hard-working group of home-schoolers.

With so many care package requests coming in from our troops, an essential aspect of our mission is bringing in groups of volunteers who are willing to dedicate time to Move America Forward to help us assemble and prep a warehouse full of care packages bound for our waiting troops.

Thanks to our Outreach Director, Scott Raab, we are able to reach out and connect with groups that welcome the opportunity to show our troops just how much they are appreciated.

We\’re so grateful to have these volunteers but we can always use more. If you happen to live within driving distance of Sacramento, California and have a few hours to spare during regular business hours Monday through Friday, please consider volunteering to pack boxes!

If you are close enough and able to, call us at (916)441-6197 or send an email to [email protected] to schedule!

Once we get all these boxes packed up, we will need someone to sponsor them so we can get them shipped to the troops, so if you are not close enough to volunteer please consider sponsoring a box today. Thank you for the support!

Photo of the Month

Some of the many \”Thank You\” letters we receive back from appreciative troops