Military Charity for Kids Flooded with Applicants & Due to Federal Funding Cuts, Slashes Benefits

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Saying goodbye is a heart-wrenching scene. (Photo: Public Domain)

Saying goodbye is a heart-wrenching scene.
(Photo: Public Domain)

October 26, 2016

By Lorra B.

Our Military Kids, a charity that gives much needed help to children while their parents are serving their country, finds itself over-flooded with applicants and unable to handle the load.

Monthly checks that are given to children of deployed Reserve and National Guard service members were once at $500 but the influx of children being added to the program has caused the checks to be cut in half to $250. This cut went into effect October 1.

The program helps to pay for things from sports programs and event tickets to music lessons and beyond. These activities help kids of a deployed parent to deal with the stress of their absence.

According to Linda Davidson, executive director of OMK, “Success brings good news and challenges for Our Military Kids. Since the word has gotten out to families that Our Military Kids is an organization that can help provide impactful support for their children during challenging periods – overseas deployments and recovery from combat related injuries- applications to our grant program are up by more than 30 percent over last year.”

“There’s a perception out there that deployments are down, so the need must be down. But that just isn’t so.”

OMK has delivered well over 55,000 grants that equal a sum of $22 million. However, because of federal funding cuts in 2014 the organization completely reliant on the generosity of private donors.

According to OMK, one service member pleads, “Please don’t send cookies, care packages or socks. Just help take care of our children. Every American has an opportunity, an obligation, to take care of military children while their military parents serve overseas or recover from visible and invisible wounds of war.”

These brave heroes give all of themselves to and for the good of the American people. They sacrifice unselfishly and with abandon leaving behind all those they love to protect and serve this great nation of ours.

It is time to give back, be it ever so small.

If you are interested in and feel lead to help OMK with donations, please click on this link for ways to give.

 

By Lorra B.

 

32 thoughts on “Military Charity for Kids Flooded with Applicants & Due to Federal Funding Cuts, Slashes Benefits”

  2. Those poor kids. I wish it was within my power to donate. Thanks to DingleBarry’s zero interest rates, our annuity is almost non-existent and we’re hanging on by a thread, but I think that’s a common problem nowadays. However, if the parents of these children will bring them to our church, someone will be sure to feed them, offer entertainment for them, they’ll hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they’ll make friends that can last a lifetime. All are welcome so that none are left behind. I pray that other church’s will step up to the plate too. Blessings ~:)

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  3. A UK prospective.
    Raised as a forces ‘brat’ I was used to no dad being around..
    Used to moving schools, different houses (and countries), making new friends, exploring new places.
    But it did leave a mark on my soul.

    Then one day I found my mum sobbing.
    The school wanted a pound to send me on a trip.
    Only the army had not paid my dad that month so we had no money.
    There were no benefits then in the 50’s, no money meant no money.
    My dad on deployment, and no family to ask for help.

    The SSAFA (Soldiers’, Sailors’ & Airmen’s Families Association) man came round and ‘lent’ my mum the pound. I refused to go (aged 6).
    Something inside me thought ‘this is wrong’.
    But when she gave back the pound the next day it wasn’t enough to cancel the debt. We still owed interest. Thus I sold my bike. I got £5 for it for a bike that my dad had got from a scrap yard and done up for me. The debt paid and chips for supper. A good deal I thought.

    Onwards to 1976 and in married quarters with a new baby.
    Only it took 3 months to get the correct allowances and child support.
    We turned to SSAFA like my mum had years before.
    SSAFA sent an ex-officer. He strutted in, looked around, then said he couldn’t see why we couldn’t manage. My wife told him to leave (in short jerky movements). It took the base chaplain to sort things out.

    That was the last time we ever went to a charity but the chaplain and his wife were welcomed whenever they knocked.

    I don’t know what charities are like now but one thing is certain, a lot of guys I knew round that time would rather sell the family silver than call out the services charities. Quite a few turning to the Salvation Army instead.

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    • Wow…just wow. I can’t begin to wrap my pea-brain around your experiences. Gut-wrenching comes to mind!

      I grew up without much of anything and, at times, was happy to have even a meal. Charities in the US, however, (not government hand-outs but true charities) are far better and though you must qualify for some there are others who will bring you a meal. Yet other charity establishments you can get three squares in. My mother, on more than one occasion, would get food boxes just so we could get through the week. No, I didn’t have it like you did and only ‘get it’ on a small measure in comparison. One thing it did do for me is make me swear that I would never grow up and be in the same position if I could help it!!

      Thanks so much for sharing your story!!!! 🙂

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  4. Pingback: Military Charity for Kids Flooded with Applicants & Due to Federal Funding Cuts, Slashes Benefits | necltr

  5. It’s probably always been ‘people standing up for what’s good and proper’ to do that make things in this world better – in the social element. Unless a Gov. is run by God, it by nature breeds corruption. BUT there are some who have the Light of God working in them and when allowed produce good fruit!
    Here’s another positive story from Sunny Skyz:
    San Antonio, Texas. At a Catholic school’s football game, the 4th grade cheerleaders were on the track doing their routine. At some point, the dads came out of the stands to hoist their girls high—-all but for one little girl. Her dad was in Iraq, serving with the U.S. Air Force. She began to cry when a high school boy, Matthew Garcia, jumped the fence, asked the girl if she was okay, got the story, and hoisted the girl high. The girl, Addie Rodriguez, said it was as if he’d saved her. (Garcia, a cross country runner, a Big Brother, an ROTC member….) —-Garcia knew what it was like to not have a dad about as his parents divorced when he was young.
    http://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/1864/She-Was-The-Only-Girl-Without-A-Dad-Present-So-A-Senior-Ran-Down-From-The-Bleachers
    Now THAT’s what we’re talking ABOUT!

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  8. Reposting this, on rshelms.wordpress.com/ First it is the military, then the Seniors on Social Security, and visa versa … who ever they can legally dump on… that is what the liberals have become, and exemplified in Obama/Clinton

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    • He seems to dislike our military so why keep supporting programs that support our troops when he can spend the money on all the illegals and refuses storming the country? Hey, come one come all…but do it legally and be vetted properly!! It’s not rocket science!! 🙄

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      • Could it be possible that he hates not only our military, but our country? Could he have general disdain for all in lower standing in the Globalists’ hierarchy? Could he be serving the British royals in their never-ending attempt at a restoration of their empire in order to achieve global domination? Could he have been born a subject to the Queen, a British citizen, because there was no independent Kenya at the time of his birth, it was the mandate/protectorate British East Africa then. Could this be joined by the efforts of powers behind the UN, Trilateral Commission, CFR, Bilderbergs, … ? I think so, and, if true, the sooner we can stop this rush to tyranny over the 500,000,000 somewhat useful eaters left alive to loyally, blindly serve the every few in power. Could one who wants to make America great again be accepted or want to be accepted by Globalists? What happens to Americans in the uniform of our country will happen to the rest of us.

        Liked by 2 people

      • All great questions! One thing remains perfectly clear…We are not one iota improved as a nation since he took office. In fact, we are much worse off not only in standing and strength but in moral as well.

        Liked by 1 person

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  12. Reblogged this on necltr and commented:
    Speaking up for those on the front lines and their families. May our troops and the American public great ourselves as one family, work for one another, and never be opposed to one another. (To maintain and increase power, tyrannies train their armies to oppose the public.)

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  13. Whatever the government can get away with in treating those under its command (troops and families), it will do to the rest of society once it has the rest of America under its control.

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