Local Austin business BuildASign.com has a free ‘Welcome Home’ banner program. Anyone welcoming home a service member can visit our special site just for these banners and signs, http://www.buildasign.com/troops, and get a fully customizable banner or sign for free.  Since 2008, Build-A-Sign has given away more than 150,000 free banners and signs to families welcoming home a service member and all you have to do is pay shipping.

The free Welcome Home sign program was recently featured on the local news stations:

High demand for ‘welcome home’ signs: kxan.com

Marianne Bedard is a proud Mother-In-Law-to-be of a Firefighter in the US Air Force, who just returned from deployment, she is also a talented jewelry maker and friend to MMOT. Her specialty is in Military Personalized jewelry. Visit her Etsy store:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/PhotoJewelryByMEB

Find some jewelry you love, and when you check out, be sure to add a note to your payment that says, “Military Moms of Texas” and Marianne will donate 25% back to MMOT.

Order your cookbook today and help support Military Moms of Texas! Only $5!

Beginners to experts get excited about cooking with incredibly flavorful Gulf Coast recipes.

ORDER HERE! Down Home Delicious, by Peggy Touchtone Sholly (2007, Hardcover)

Operation Green Santa

Operation Green Santa is our annual toy drive and fund raising event to provide assistance and gifts for our  local military families. All gifts and funds raised stays right here in our community. Come show your support and appreciation for our service members by giving their families a holiday to remember.

Join us for the 2011 Operation Green Santa at Camp Mabry from 12-3pm on December 11th. Bring a new unwrapped gift which will be distributed to the children of our service members. Be sure to bring your driver’s license, as this is required to enter Camp Mabry.

Operation Green Santa Ride

To participate in the ride, please provide two toys to donate. Toys will be carried to Mabry in a truck behind the riders. Mabry will distribute the toys to their families after the event. First 100 participants bringing 2 toys will receive an Operation Green Santa ornament.

Timeline

Cowboy Harley Ride to Camp Mabry (approximately 200 riders) – 11am

Green Santa Military Appreciation Day at Camp Mabry – 12-3pm

If you can’t attend the event, you can still help!

Drop off your new toys by December 11 at one of our drop locations around town, including:

• Fitness in Motion 10900 Research Blvd. Suite 200B (North Austin)
• Fitness HQ 10001 Research Blvd. Suite 100 (North Austin)
• The Mary Dale Law Firm 1001 Cypress Creek Road Suite 106 (Cedar Park)
• Brushy Creek Recreation Center 16318 S Great Oaks Dr (Round Rock)
• Cowboy Harley-Davidson 10917 S IH 35 (South Austin)
• Covert Cadillac 11750 Research Blvd (North Austin)
• Falcon Pointe Communities 19015 Falcon Pointe Blvd (Pflugerville)
• Emo’s 2015 E Riverside Dr (downtown Austin)
• Great American Storage 16450 North FM 620, 512-248-1518 (Round Rock)

For question and media relations, please contact:

Mark Spears at idonotquit@gmail.com

Tracy La Porte and Kati Spears at  512-470-3485 or tracylaporte@gmail.com

Homes for Our Troops is a national non-profit committed to helping those who have selflessly given to our country and have returned home with serious disabilities and injuries since September 11, 2001. They assist severely injured Servicemen and Servicewomen and their immediate families by raising monetary donations, building materials and professional labor and to coordinate the process of building a home that provides maximum freedom of movement and the ability to live more independently.

The homes provided by Homes for Our Troops are given at NO COST to the Veterans served.

Note: An eligible Veteran or service member may receive a Veterans Administration Specially Adapted Housing Grant up to a maximum amount of $63,780. Homes for Our Troops’ assistance covers all costs over and above this grant to ensure that the home is provided at no cost to the recipient.

www.homesforourtroops.org

GreenCare for Troops is a nationwide outreach program initiated by Project EverGreen that connects participating landscape maintenance professionals and citizen volunteers with families of the men and women away from home serving our country in the Armed Forces. Lawn and Landscape maintenance becomes a definite hardship when a military family’s primary breadwinner is on active duty away from home. GreenCare for Troops seeks to ease this burden by helping affected families with the important task of caring for their yard and landscape. Landscape professionals and individual volunteers donate their services to the military families during deployment time not to exceed one year.

Based in New Prague, Minnesota, Project EverGreen is a national non-profit organization representing the green industry service providers, associations, suppliers, distributors, and individuals. The link between the families and the volunteers is done at the Project EverGreen headquarters.  If a volunteer is located in the area of a military family, the military family is contacted by telephone or email with the volunteer’s information.  It is the military family’s responsibility (due to confidentiality of the family’s information) to contact the volunteer. Due to the number of military families and volunteers participating and our skeleton staff, a participating military family will hear from GCFT only when we have a volunteer to assist them.

Receiving free lawn care service depends on the volunteers in areas of need; this service is not guaranteed in all areas, but we make every effort to accommodate as many families as we possibly can with the volunteers we have and by recruitment of more volunteers for those areas of need.

To date, we have more than 9,000 military families and more than 2,600 volunteers nationwide who have registered with our program. To participate as a family in need of lawn care, or to volunteer to ease this burden for a military family, please complete and submit a short on-line registration form which can be found on www.projectevergreen.com/gcft Donations welcome.