Summer is such a beautiful season!

We're mixed up in the warm summer nights, catching fireflies or watching the sticky ice cream melt off of our cones. We hear the joy of freedom in the laughter of the kids playing in the park, or diving into the pool. We see it in their eyes as we enjoy longer days, the iced drinks (especially in the South!) and the kiss of the sun on our cheeks. It's this summer month especially that we're brought to sober reflection on the reason for our freedom. Eisenhower said that "Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men".  Others have said that "Freedom is the oxygen of the soul", and Cowper said that "Freedom has a thousand charms to show".

Thomas Campbell said that "The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree", and it's with this sober sentiment that we make the announcement that no one ever wants to hear, but that deep inside, we know is inevitable when we send our sons and daughters, friends and family to war.

In the past two months, two Soldiers on the Cypress Cares mailing list lost their lives. Army SPC Brian D. Riley died in Afghanistan in mid-May, and on June 25, Army 1LT Dimitri del Castillo was killed during a firece firefight in Afghanistan. Lieutenant del Castillo's loss  hit home particularly hard, as Cypress Cares' Raquel Cunningham had sat with him in the room of her house in 2004 to conduct his interview for United States Military Academy.  

Dimitri and his wife Katie, also a 1LT are pictured here.  Both are graduates of the West Point in 2009.

There is a quote that sums up the life of these Soldiers fittingly: "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost". These two Soldiers gave their all for our freedom. Please take a moment today to remember their sacrifice and to remember the loved ones that they left behind. 

In other news for Cypress Cares:

Thank you to the 130 golfers who participated in this year's golf tournament. Not only did we have a great time and beautiful weather, we raised enough funds to pay for the remainder of 2011 packages! We're already working on the third annual tournament in 2012. See our list of generous tournament sponsors below, and support them this year, as they supported us!

We've had several small box packing events throughout in May and June: with the help of the residents of Ainsley Courte Assisted Living in Cypress we filled 20+ boxes and the First Ladies of Bridgeland's, who held their third box packing event for Cypress Cares and our troops filled more than 30!  Local Brownie Troop 11997, recently adopted a female service member and will start writing letters to her next month.

The box packing which was originally to be held at the Foundry UMC on Jones Road on July 23 has been moved to Cypress TaeKwon-Do on Barker Cypress Road.  The event will begin at 1:30 in the afternoon.  We are need of a lot of goods for this event.  Please encourage everyone to bring at least a couple of items for our packages to this event or to drop them off at Raquel's home before July 22. 

The Foundry box-packing event has been re-scheduled to August 6 at the Jones Road campus of the church.  See the "Upcoming Events" section for more information.

The Cypress United Methodist Church has an added Cypress Cares to the list of missions that they work with as part of an outreach program for supporting the military.  We'll be working with them to help develop their program and get their congregation involved. 

In an effort to keep our mailing list clean, we'll be asking you to verify the mailing address of package recipients you've submitted to us every two months in order to continue sending packages. We've received a number of return packages, so we want to ensure Soldiers who need the goods are indeed receiving them! Please contact us by mid-July with current mailing info of anyone whose name you have sent in. Soon we'll be updating our website to allow you to submit troop names and addresses, along with requests for specific items and things like whether or not they have access to microwaves and other amenities.

Thank you to both Barron Davis and Joshua Graham, two Houston-area Boy Scouts who are working on their Eagle Scout badges by supporting our effort to ship care packages. They continue to work on their project, gathering items on their own, as well as money to help pay for the shipping. The boys are responsible for also packing and labeling all of their care packages.  We know that the troops appreciate the effort; hopefully these young men we get letters back from the frontlines to let them know just what kind of a difference their effort has made and they will realize that what they've done has truly touched the hearts and lives of many. Joshua's project culminated this past week after he collected goods for about 40 boxes which CC mailed to troops on our list and some money to help with the cost of mailing them. Barron will likely be wrapping up sometime soon.

Enjoy your Fourt of July festivities today, but always remember the men and women who have served, or are serving, which allow us the freedom to celebrate all that we have; all that make us uniquely American!