Mission Accomplished -- CD's On Their Way To The Troops

We've mentioned the donation of CD's for our overseas troops in several issues of CDD. And we've got great news to share with all of you. Easterseal from The Clayboard CD/Troop thread has finally delivered all of our CD's, which ended up totaling 2154, to Lt. Col. Branlish and his staff who will make certain they get to the appropriate people to have them sent to our troops. Easterseal tells us her story at The Clayboard thread. Below is part of what she said (you can read the rest of it at The Clayboard):

Now the goal, what a wonderful experience, Terry, Lisa(mom4Clay22) and myself met some of America's finest representatives today. Not the soldiers from battle, but the people who make sure they and their families are never forgotten. Lt Col. Branlish, his assistant, Lt. Lisa Boden and Susan a civilian family service worker were the most wonderful people I have dealt with in a long time. First of all we loaded the boxes on carts, took them to there special storage area (they cleaned a spot for us HEH HEH), then we all gathered around the table and talked about the project, each other, our young men and women. Lisa from Columbus and his assist. also Lisa were from the same area and compared notes shopping. We made small talk while waiting for the Lt.Col. who was unfortunately doing some bereavement counseling. When he joined us, he asked when I thought of it and why, he was simply overwhelmed by the generosity of people to send and spend so much money for our young men and women, I told him it was a privilege. He explained how the CD's would be handled, their family service group and volunteers will meet soon and get started on the care packages and he will also call all the other branches and let them know that the CD's are available for them to come and get and send to their respective units.

He said they may even have to hock one or two for themselves. Also Lisa (claymate lisa) brought another 37 Cd's she had collected, making our total 2154. Then the Lt. Col. and his staff presented me with a beautiful throw with the Family Services and National Guard Armory in black and their insignia in the middle and they presented Terry and Lisa with a bouquet of flowers!! We took pictures, I have some from the loaded car and outside of Armory and Lisa took some inside, she is going to do most of the uploading of the pictures, since I am not very literate with that.

What a great experience that must have been for all who were there. No doubt all who were involved in collecting the CD's and sending them to Easterseal must and should feel good about being a part of this. I assume the pictures that were taken will be on the above Clayboard thread for all to see, so stop by the thread later and check it out.

Many thanks to Easterseal and Ruby for all their work. And much thanks to Clay for giving us such a wonderful CD to share with our troops!

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