Soldiers' Angels Kansas City Parade Planning

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!!!

Let's show Kansas City how we feel about Mo Ghile Mear (Our Heroes)!


~Keep an eye on this space for updates.



- May no soldier go unloved

Reminder: Snake Saturday Parade Meeting

Don't forget to join us at Armory Night on February 20, 6:30 to 7:30 PM to go over our float design.

Army NG Armory
7600 Ozark Rd. KC, MO
Near I-435 & Eastwood Trafficway
(near ArrowheadStadium)


More details on this post.

Remember, Soldier's Angels needs you! to help us bring awareness to the Kansas City area and more support to our troops!


- May no soldier go unloved

Armory Nights and Snake Saturday Meeting

I've just been informed that the Snake Saturday planning meeting originally scheduled tonight, Tuesday, February 13 at the Missouri National Guard Armory has been rescheduled for Tuesday, February 20. Same place. Same time - 6:30pm.

Please keep checking the blog for updates.

Email KC Soldiers' Angels for more information.

- May no soldier go unloved

Soldiers' Angels Needs You!Snake Saturday; Armory Nights

This is a reminder that Tuesday, February 13 6:30pm to 7:30pm, Soldiers' Angels Kansas City will have their first meeting to discuss the design of our Snake Saturday Parade float.

Army NG Armory
7600 Ozark Rd. KC, MO
Near I-435 & Eastwood Trafficway
(near ArrowheadStadium)

For more information, e-mail: Kansas City Soldiers' Angels


What Snake Saturday Can Mean to Soldiers' Angels

The Snake Saturday Parade in North Kansas City is not the biggest or most televised Irish/St. Patrick Day's parade in the nation. But, for our local Kansas City Soldiers' Angels, it will be very important.



According to the history page:

Held the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day, the parade has also come to be known as the best showcase of not-for-profit organizations in Kansas City .

“That all began a couple of years after we organized Northland Festivals and were still making a committee decision on how to divide up our profits among the many charities in the Northland.” Finn said. “Then someone suggested we invited the organizations to build floats and compete for prize money. That way, we figured it would promote community involvement and help us to help them. Of course, no one walks away a loser when all is said and done, according to Finn.

We try to spread the money around so that almost every not-for-profit that takes part in the parade walks away with money.

There are many prizes for design, organization and spirit. This year, first prize in the Rainbow Division is $7000. The parade grand prize is $10,000. Soldiers' Angels could do a lot with that money. When I participated in the June 2006 drive, approximately $5000 in goods went out in over 50 boxes to troops in Afghanistan and Landstuhl. That was collected almost entirely in one day.

It's not just the money. As noted, we could do a donation drive and collect that much in direct assistance in a day. One of the most important aspects of participating in this parade is the recognition of our organization and the chance to tell other like minded people that there is an organization out there that they can join and participate with, right here in Kansas City, to support our troops.

From personal experience, I know that there are many people who want to do just that, but don't know how. Many people still don't use the internet on a regular basis and that is where Soldiers' Angels has had the strongest impact in networking people and organizations.

However, they say all politics are local and that means that people are most interested in what happens locally, in their city, in their neighborhood. That's where we have a chance to make our impact here in Kansas City. We can connect. And, with the "surge", there hundreds if not thousands of local National Guard and active duty soldiers who will be deploying or who's deployment has been extended that will need our continuing support.

Connecting directly with our local citizens means that we could develop relationships and bring new "Angels" on board to affect the long term needs of our men and women in uniform.

Soldiers' Angels Needs You!

Besides needing to put together the best float possible in a little less than a month in order to "go for the gold", the best way to get the attention of the parade goers is to have a large presence of t-shirt wearing, sign carrying Soldiers' Angels.

Every year, the Snake Saturday Parade has thousands of people lining the parade route. There is a family oriented fair and BBQ Championship directly after the parade. There are many small business, restraunts and bars within walking distance of the parade route.

There is also usually a media presence including most of the local news channels and papers.

There are going to be many great organizations taking part in this parade. To get the attention of the crowd, we need to be a "presence". We need as many Soldiers' Angels (and supporters) as possible to bring awareness to our group and organization.

That's why we need you! to get involved and join us at the parade. Whether you walk with the float or stand in the crowd and cheer, it will be great fun for you and the family with a big plus towards supporting our men and women.

So, come on down, help us out with the float and join us for the parade. I am looking forward to seeing you all and bringing Soldiers' Angels recognition in Kansas City.

Cross referenced at the Castle and The Middle Ground

- May no soldier go unloved