ROCKY MOUNTAIN MILITARY MOMs

I put the MOMs together in self-defense the summer of '03. My only son, a U.S. Marine, was about to be deployed overseas. I knew I needed someone that I could talk to whose eyes would NOT glaze over whenever I talked about my baby boy and who understood that HE was all I thought about. My baby daughter has since joined the Navy so I now wear two blue stars on my pin. My son's best friend, whose mother died 3 years ago, joined the Marines after my son. I have told him he is now MINE so he is my adopted Marine, and couldn't be closer to my heart if I had had him.

MOMs typically do everything for their families leaving friends behind. I wanted to give MOMs a place to find friendship and acceptance - friendships we would all dream of having when we were growing up. Our main goal is to help MOMs through the tough months of boot camp & deployment and to be a support system for each other when they come home with "THAT ATITUDE". IF you join us we expect you come out and help us - PLAN ON BEING ACTIVE. We are not your typical online group. We make time to get-together, either on the phone, online or in person to support each other giving physical and mental support. We come together and help each other with their pet projects and once a year, around 9/11, we have a group get-together for an entire weekend.

We not only DO THINGS to help each other but also our Military Community both active and inactive. We have MOMs that send packages overseas, hold monthly HUG & KISS-A-THONs (hugs wrap around your neck after being dunked in water, lowering a body's temperature and kisses do the same thing in helmets), and we get together to send packages, letters and cards to our heroes stationed overseas, back in the states and in our military hospitals.

We have gone to the Veteran's Hospital at Easter time and held ice cream socials; we provided ice cream and all the fixings as well as handed out lots of shirts, hats and fun stuff collected through donations all year long. We also helped Denver's South East Rotary Club with their annual Veteran's appreciation breakfast giving away MOM hugs.

We try to attend the funerals of our fallen to show support for our HEROES and their families, and let our Gold Star MOMs - MOMs of our fallen heroes - know we are here for them and help guide them to our Gold Star MOM group. We make condolence books - beautiful works of love from MOMs all over the country - filling these books with 100s of condolences, poems, and beautiful graphics to let these MOMs know their baby boy/girl may be gone but WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. WE have a MOM that makes angel tags (pictures of the fallen embedded onto a dog tag), and we make squares for comfort quilts.

We are now moving into a new direction, a much needed direction. We would like to create a place for our Heroes to come once released from their service in the military. A place where all our Heroes, active and inactive, can come to regroup and slowly acclimate back into society, to find love support and a place to relax away from the pressures society imposes, and get started on furthering their education. This is a new direction for us and is being realized slowly but as Martin Luther King once said "I HAVE A DREAM", my dream too will hopefully be realized with YOUR HELP.