The United States Armed Forces Mothers are cooking up a host of items for today’s Tuckahoe Street Fair in Bellwood.
The organization will be selling homemade soups and baked goods to raise funds for its annual Christmas effort to provide gifts for active duty service men and women and their children, according to the group’s spokesperson Lou Ann Leamer. The funds will also be used for a yearround effort to provide needed items for military personnel whenever the need arises.
Leamer said the group recently sent 13 boxes of supplies to Iraq containing snack foods and insect repellant “just because we knew they needed things.” The group is planning to send another 13 boxes soon.
“The project we’re doing in the Persian Gulf will continue until they come home,” Leamer said.
While the group sends such boxes throughout the year, the Christmas project is much different, sending boxes to servicemen and women all over the world. The group expects to send 80 boxes this Christmas, and Leamer said the postage runs into the thousands of dollars.
“The Christmas Box Project was something we started for our own kids,” Leamer said. “Each mom gets to pack her own child’s box.”
But donations for the project grew over time, and the group decided to share as it received the names of others serving their country away from home. The project this year will reach military folks in the Persian Gulf as well as Korea, Germany, and places in the U.S. such as Hawaii, Alaska, California, and Texas. Every mom in the organization bakes cookies and makes fudge to send to the troops.
Those receiving boxes often send cards of thanks to the moms, and, Leamer said, the group last year attached disposable cameras to the boxes asking the recipients to have someone take their pictures as they opened their pacakages to record their reactions. Aside from the other donated and purchased items, each box contained a fleece throw purchased by the organization.
But Leamer said the moms have the most fun preparing boxes for the sons and daughters of those serving.
“The thing that I think is the most fun is we buy gifts for our kids’ kids from newborn to the teenage years,” Leamer says.
Leamer says the separation that military families endure can be very difficult. Leamer’s son was serving in the first Gulf War when his daughter was born in Texas. He was able to return when she was two weeks old.
In spite of the difficulties, Leamer says military service is a good experience for those who serve.
“One of the things this kind of experience does is it makes these young people relate to what’s going on inside themselves and what’s happening with others who are in difficult circumstances.”
Leamer said the mothers are preparing vegetable soup and chile for Saturday’s event, as well as apple dumplings, pies, cakes, and a variety of items featuring pumpkin. The Street Fair has been an annual event for the Armed Forces Mothers for at least the last 18 years. The group traditionally prepares soups and apple dumplings for the event and this year will add hot dogs with sauerkraut and ham barbecue. Various military pins will be available for purchase as well.
While the Street Fair will offer a variety of foods and crafts, Leamer says the Armed Forces Moms feature food for the event every year.
“Mostly we’ve got food. Moms specialize in food,” she said.
And with every one of the group’s 42 mothers participating, the feast should be quite plentiful.
Also on Saturday, the group will be accepting donations for the boxes to go to the troops and their children. Suggested items for troop donations include snack foods, candy, personal care items, razors, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and shampoo. Suggested items for children include items such as coloring books and puzzle books.
The festivities will begin at the Bellwood Firehall at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m.
