AAR (After Action Report)-We had our first KC Soldiers' Angels Meeting to plan our float for the Snake Saturday Parade in North Kansas City March 10. We had a great group of Angels show up at the National Guard Armory for some brainstorming. If you've never been to an Angel meeting then you've missed out meeting some really creative people. Everyone added some ideas and volunteered for part of the project. In fact, I'd guess we could out do many advertising agencies AND stay in budget. Angels know how to get the most bang for the buck. (That's why they can pack three boxes with enough goodies to support a squad for a month and still keep the family in peanut butter and jelly *just kidding*)
This years theme is "A Leprechauns Pot of Gold". Our float has to play to that theme to be allowed entry. We came up with our motto, "Supporting Those Who Protect Our Pot of Gold". A soldier in Iraq is loaning us his truck and 16 foot trailer. His dad is going to drive it for us. We're ordering t-shirts for the angels walking and asking all those who want to walk and support the troops who aren't members of Soldiers' Angels to wear green.
One of our angels was an excellent artist. She drew a pretty good 2 dimensional representation of our float, complete with soldiers and a pot of gold. According to our project organizer, we have three soldiers who are guaranteed to ride with us and one more potential. Right now we have about 12 people who are guaranteed to walk with the float (including me). We're still looking for more people. I've been prodding my family and a few others mentioned extended family that are willing to participate. But, we still need more so, aside from building the pieces for the float and the signs we will carry, we are looking for a few good men and women (and children) who are willing to walk with us and show their support. I mentioned before that there are plenty of prizes to be had that would be helpful in sending out care packages or providing other support. But, what we're really interested in reaching is this:
We want to tell people about our organization and how great it is. We want to reach people who might be interested in supporting the troops, but don't know how. We also want to tell them how proud we are of our men and women in uniform.
To do that, we need presence. So, I'm putting out the call again to Angels wherever they are that might want to come to NKC to participate. Please contact KC Soldiers Angels for information on how you can join us and show your support. If you're not a Soldiers' Angel, but you want to show people that you support our troops, we're looking for you, too.
What can you do? We just need you to walk with the float and, if you want to, carry signs that show how to support the troops or simply saying "Support the Troops". We want to show people that we really care about our men and women in uniform.
As an added bonus, we're going to video tape our activities and get group and individual messages of support for our troops. This video will be posted at this site and several other forums. We are looking at creating DVD or CD/other media recordings to send with care packages and letters. So, if you want to get your mug on the video and send a personal message to our troops, you just need to show up for the parade.
We already started Tuesday night and I want to thank all the Angels that recorded a message. Standby for some clips to be posted here.
I am personally very excited about our project and I am very glad to be working with the dedicated Angels of Kansas City.
Looking forward to seeing you there!!!
Ghile Mear (Our Heroes)!~Keep an eye on this space for updates.
- May no soldier go unloved 
Soldiers' Angels: Adopt a Soldier
