Guard Support News Happy Holidays!
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| Boston Bruins Foundation Charity Raffle Benefits Guard Support |
Here's your chance to win an official Boston Bruins Stanley Cup Championship Ring and help raise money for Guard Support! This is the same ring issued to members of the Bruins organization. The winner's last name will be engraved on the ring. Raffle tickets are $5 each - deadline to buy tickets is Friday, December, 23rd at 6:30pm. Raffle drawing is at 7pm.
Click here to buy raffle tickets online for your chance to win an Official Boston Bruins Stanley Cup Championship Ring! Enter "GUARD" in the Charity Code field at check out and the Boston Bruins Foundation will donate 50% of raffle proceeds to Guard Support. Raffle proceeds will help fund the Emergency Financial Relief program that provides grants to Guard families facing financial need, often as a result of deployment.
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Boston Cares: Letters to Soldiers and Airmen Project
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We are pleased to announce o  ur new partnership with Boston Cares. Boston Cares has committed to providing volunteers to assist Guard Support with events, programs and projects. Boston Cares is the largest volunteer action center in New England. Our first partnership project is the "Letters to Guard Soldiers and Airmen Project". Boston Cares volunteers are writing 600 letters to our National Guard Soldiers and Airmen serving in Afghanistan. Guard Support will work closely with unit Family Readiness Groups to have the letters sent to their loved ones serving overseas. 
On September 11th volunteers commemorated the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 by writing letters to Guard Soldiers and Airmen serving overseas. Several letter writing events were held the week of November 11th commemorating Veterans' Day and on National Family Volunteer Family Day (November 19). The final letter writing event will be held on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on January 16, 2012. Here is one of the letters a volunteer wrote to a National Guard member serving overseas: To a True American Hero, As a New Yorker, American, child of Afghan parents, and a muslim woman currently living in Boston, Mass. I would like to thank you. Thank you for fighting for this wonderful country, for fighting to protect the rights and freedoms I deeply cheerish, and for fighting to show the strength, courage and resilience of the United States of America. Not a day goes by that all of our troops don't cross my mind and not a day goes by that I don't pray for all of you come back home safely. You are a True American Hero. You are a role model that American children look up to. You are the reason people like me can live in a country of peace, without worrying about everyday safety. I may never meet you or know your name, but please trust that I am deeply grateful for everything that you do and cannot imagine what this country would do without you. Many thanks, prayers, and well wishes. Please come home safe. Sincerely, Arian Rustemi
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| TD Charitable Foundation Supports Family Readiness Group Program |
The TD Chari table Foundation and TD Bank Financial Group have awarded a $6,000 contribution to Guard Support's Family Readiness Group (FRG) Grant Program providing much needed program funding. To date, Guard Support has provided $70,000 in FRG grants to 94 Family Readiness Groups and is the only organization in Massachusetts that provides start-up and ongoing grant funding for National Guard FRGs.
National Guard families are isolated from other military families. Unlike other military branches that have bases, National Guard families don't benefit from base support groups and base family services, or from the strong military community prevalent on base. This makes the deployment of a spouse or parent all the more difficult for the families. Grants are awarded to unit Family Readiness Groups to help support Guard families. FRGs provide an effective means of supporting families and reducing trauma and stress. They assist in preventing problems that may affect families as a result of their spouse's separation due to mobilization, deployment, or training. FRG grant funds are used for support group administration, meetings, educational programs, events for the children, holiday parties, send-off ceremonies and homecoming celebrations. To date over 25% of Guard Support's grants disbursed have been for FRG funding. |
