The Family Activity's Spring Fling was a success. We started the morning off by introducing our project for the New Year. We will be working with "Project Rudolph" at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and Tawny Campbell the director.
Mrs. Campbell and her husband, Sgt. Joe Campbell, started this project in 2006 when she heard that several hundred soldiers would be passing through the base on Christmas Eve and Christmas day for deployment allover the world.
They put together decorated bags; candy, American and German; poems, Christmas cards, drawings; and Christmas ornaments. They passed out the bags at the airport and at the medical center to the injured soldiers.
The Family Activity's directors and committee would like all the Granges to collect items that we can ship to Germany in November. Our Grange, Nimishillen Grange #1627 in Stark County, asked Carter Lumber to donate the bags and then we took them to the four elementary schools in our school district and asked to decorate the bags and write letters or draw pictures for the soldiers. The schools also received letters written from some parents and grandparents, ornaments and candy, our church youth groups also decorated some bags and painted some wooden ornaments.
Their website is: www.projectrudolph.homestead.com. The website will give you lots of information. We know everyone does not have a computer so we gave information to you deputy, ask them for it.
We had two speakers come to Spring Fling. First was Jean Murray of Zanesville. She told us about quilts she has made that are replicas of Civil war quilts. She had one that looked like the quilt Martha Washington made. Another quilt was called the "Boston Commons". She told us history and background of the four quilts that she has made and then showed us the two quilts that have a history that dates back to the civil war. The first one was to be a wedding gift. At the time Morgan's Raiders were stealing and destroying everything they could get their hands on. The brides' parents had to find a place to hide the quilt until the wedding. Someone gave them a lard can to hide it in but they knew that was not a good enough hiding place so they took all the hot coals off the cooking area and dug down to the cool earth and buried the quilt and the can. The wedding was a success and the quilt was beautiful. Mrs. Murray paid $200.00 for this quilt
The second quilt Mrs. Murray showed was made by a pregnant mother who already had three children and her husband was a captain in the U.S. Army. The young mother asked her sister to come and help with the children, the birth process and the quilt. The quilt was in the "Tea Leaf" design. What was really amazing was after they quilted the material they turned the quilt over and separated a couple threads and stuffed that area (picture at the end). The ladies finished the quilt but the young mother died during child birth. The sister stayed and raised the children with their father. Mrs. Murray paid $900.00 for this quilt.
Our next speaker was Stephanie Hansgen, also of Zanesville, she is a consultant for Creative Memory a scrapbook company. She talked about the many different kinds of scrapbook styles that are available either through Creative Memory or other places that sell scrapbook supplies. She also showed the many different scrape books she has made for her children and mother. She gave ideas for our scrap book open page contest.
Either of these ladies would be happy to come and talk to your grange. We have their phone numbers just ask us.
Mike Abood made us a great lunch. We had chicken breast sandwich, broccoli cheddar soup, a lettuce salad, and a chocolate cake with white icing and cherry sauce. It was goooood.
After lunch we made a Santa or snowman candy bowl. The base was a fishbowl which was painted white and flush for Santa and white for the snowman. We then used a flower pot, inverted, for the hat. Each person decorated their candy jar as they wanted to.
We are looking forward to our next Spring Fling and hope more of you will be able to come and enjoy our efforts.
Dear Project Rudolph Supporters,
We only have till Nov. 11 (Veteran's Day) to get Project Rudolph donations in the mail....
Many of you know are familiar with the charity Project Rudolph where we send thousands of Christmas gift bags to our troops down range, those transitioning through the Ramstein Germany PAX terminal the week before Christmas and those deployed to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the patients being treated there.
Each bag includes:
- Hand decorated brown lunch bag
- 2 hand written letters from children/youth
- 1 hand written letter from an adult
- 1 non-breakable, preferably flat, Christmas ornament with 'Project Rudolph 2009' written on it
- a Christmas Poem
- some American candy & Germany candy
Letters CANNOT:
- Be Dated
- Ask any questions about war, injuries, killing, act (Believe it or not 10% of all letters cannot be
delivered because of this)
- Be politically motivated or mention politicians or political affiliation
- Be type written or a photocopy
- Be in a sealed envelope (all letters have to reviewed before being handed out)
Letters CAN..:
- Express support and appreciation
- Tell about the writer's family, life, likes, etc.
- Share personal experiences that motivate
- include a return address
Thank you all. If you have any questions or would like more information. Contact me at:
e-mail: taznjo@hotmail.com
website: www.projectrudolph.homestead.com
We will be adding the baking results after May 16. Maybe we will have to get out our kayaks to get to camp. We also have a new email address: alshank@att.net Lyn and Ann
