From the President
A Message from a Past President ('06-'10)
American Family Link was founded for the purpose of reminding our troops, both past and present, they are never forgotten. We are also here to help support the families of our troops, emotionally and in any other way. Each month we see more and more people attend out meetings to simply show their support of our troops, whether they have a family member serving or not. The outpouring of “helping hands” at our package mailing meetings (March, July and November) gets larger and larger with each mailing.
It is wonderful see the children that come to help and know they are being made aware of the sacrifices of troops perhaps not many years older they themselves. Our local Boy Scout and Girl Scout Troops have been a huge help as well.
At least 4 times a year American Family Link has an opportunity to welcome home those troops for whom we have been provided information. Note: If anyone has information pertaining to someone that has returned from their deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan please let us know by emailing the webmaster: webmaster@americanfamilylink.org.
When we welcome these troops home we present them with certificates of appreciation and recognition from the City of Leominster as well as the State and when possible local political representatives make these presentations. American Family Link presents a certificate as well as a gift bag. These gift bags typically contain small gifts to encourage relaxation as well as restaurant and movie gift cards in hopes that the returning troop and his/her family will have some much deserved “down time”.
American Family Link would not be successful without the many contributions, donations and time of so many residents from Leominster and our surrounding communities. The generosity of so many in a time when we are all feelings the pinch of the economy is astounding. A typical mailing of our packages can cost as much as $1200.00 but through the fundraisers done by our AFL volunteers, monetary contributions from private citizens, and other donations we are able to continue these package mailings and bring our service mean and women “a bit of home”. We want to make sure our servicemen and women know that they are always in our minds and hearts.
It is my hope that the community will continue this tradition of caring for their military and their families allowing for the exponential growth of American Family Link. Thank you to all who have donated so very much to our success and to the future of our organization. Together we will never forget.
If you would like to make a contribution here is a list of some of the items we have received in the past:
*Worldwide / International Phone Cards
*Boxes of various t-shirts and white socks
(sent to individual troops as well as the field hospitals)
*Hand made knitted/crocheted hats
*Restaurant Cards (to be included in the gift bags given to our troops as we welcome them home)
*Helmet Liners
*Drawings from local school children
*Personally signed greeting cards (thanking them for their service, holiday cards, thinking of you cards and just simply a note to let our troops know we are thinking of them
*Holiday items and light decorations to be included in our November packages for the upcoming December holiday that our troops must spend away from their families
*Boxes/bags of crackers; hard candies; chewing gum; baby wipes; travel size toiletries; books (paper back); magazines; cd’s; dvd’s; crossword/sudoku books; writing paper and pens
*Toy footballs; frisbees; Nurf balls; etc.
Any donations can be dropped off during our monthly meetings or at any of our events.