Jan 2007 Tim Hortons for our Troops group on face book launched, for sending Tim Hortons coffee to soldiers in Afghanistan, To date 30,000 in free coffee has been sent direct. With $0.00 in certificates coming to myself or my site.
March 2007 Operation Pen Pal launched on Face Book, purpose matching soldiers and civilians from members of the UN Collation in Afghanistan and Iraq and soldiers around the world. To date we have matched over 1000 soldiers and civilians at no cost to anyone.
October 2007 Group created called Petition to Canada Petition To Canada Post For A Support Our Troops Stamp
Purpose: A petition to Canada post to issue a stamp honouring the sacrifice of Canadian Heroes it received 6600+ signatures and and letters were sent to the stamp committee and this stamp honouring veterans and current soldiers will be coming out in October of 2009
Petition Link : http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?SOT
Dec 2008
I also started two non military related groups called “Pay it forward Canadian edition” and “The biggest loser face book edition about getting people to perform random acts of kindness, the other who helping people like myself in trying to lose weight. Not really related but I did meet some very amazing people through both.
On December 5th, 2008 my website coffee4ourtroops.com had been hacked and shut down by a group of people in a foreign region claiming they found security faults in my website. I was devastated when I had seen this. Almost two years of work, photos from soldiers, guest book messages, all gone, I was almost ready to quit. I talked to a mother of a fallen soldier and she told me the things I do for the soldiers and their families mean too much and that I had to think about the soldiers who lose their friends while serving. They don’t quit, they get up the next day and have to soldier on and that is what I did. I was determined to get it back in some way.
April 2008 Support For Military families and Injured Soldiers group was created on face book
Purpose: A Networking site for connecting families of soldiers, and Injured soldiers to each other
I have met so many amazing family members of soldiers through this group and injured soldiers and its making a big difference as these people are meeting each other.
May 2008 I created an application on face book called “Military Gifts” just a fun application for the military community to send photos to each other on face book, weapons, memorials, jets, ships, base logos, all in small photos that go on each others profile when you send them.
Jan 2009 the Thank a soldier cause was launched and since then over 4000+ students in the US and Canada and 1 school in Britain have sent letters to US, Canadian, British Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve matched people up in Turkey in Denmark via request to the thankasoldier inbox.
Thank a soldier is run by myself but I have six admins on my cause page on face book who monitor for security violations, language and anything negative to our soldiers. they are :
Scott Norman – (Ontario, Canada) A close friend of mine since 1999 and probably one of the few people in this world I know would have my back no matter what. Scott helped me admin my Tim Hortons for our troops group since day one.
Nigel Pritchard – (Alberta, Canada) A Former reservist and member of the Calgary Highlanders. Nigel was also recently in the move Passchendaele as an extra and also a good personal friend of mine.
Ben Solowan (Alberta, Canada) also a former member of our military and have known him for about a year through several of the other groups that I run on here.
Daryl Innes -(Alberta, Canada) A former lineman with the Canadian forces
for nine years and met through face book then realized we worked for the same company now hahah,
Jennifer Connoly : Former CF Member, currently working as a ER Nurse, she did three tours as a medic and has worked with many injured soldiers, I`ve met her a few times for coffee when I lived in Toronto and she was home between tours and one of the coolest most bad a** girls you`ll ever meet.
Matthew Worth @Canadianmatt3 A Current serving soldier who has done one tour in Afghanistan and a great guy
My work has come forward and paid for my shipping and coworkers from both floors of my building have contributed to numerous packages being sent to front lines guys in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve also sent goodies to troops serving at embasys in non war zones just to include everyone.
I’ve been able to do all this without having ONE CENT come my way. Through friends getting together and sending things, people sending the coffee themselves, the schools sending the letters, I believe it’s truly unique. I see a lot of good organizations come and go in the last three years since I started all this.
When I am on my twitter account @Thankasoldier I conversate with people, I make jokes and talk. Yes I post links but its simply recruiting members to the causes, military related links. When I come across good organizations doing good things I will link to their twitter and to their site.
So I hope this gives you a little insight to all the things we do and thanks for taking the time to read it
