A big salute to the YELLOW RIBBON CLUB! Today all of the hard work done by our 7th graders in the Yellow Ribbon Club, produced the final tour route for the tour.
**We now have the actual dates for the visits at each hometown. Kathy will be getting hold of you if we have contact info for your department. If in doubt, feel free to email us directly at HeroShirts@aol.com and we can get your visit locked in asap. lj**
**CHANGE ONE -- We have removed one of the Connecticut stops, (We had three) so that we can spend time with some of our favorites up in Massachusetts. We will visit Framingham, MA toward the end of May. See schedule below. lj
4th Annual National HeroToHero.US Tour ...
"Passport Tour"
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Moscow, ID
- Billings, MT
- Sheridan, WY
- Rapid City, SD
- Mitchell, SD
- La Crosse, WI
- Fond Du Lac, WI
- Holland, MI
- Detroit, MI
- Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
- London, Ontario, Canada
- Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
- Buffalo, NY
- Cleveland, OH
- Cambridge, OH
- Wheeling, WV
- Shanksville, PA
- Milford, PA
- Framingham, CT
- Manchester, NH
- Portland, ME
- Providence, RI
- Durham, CT
- New Haven, CT
- New York, NY
- Trenton, NJ
- Philadelphia, PA
- Baltimore, MD
- Washington DC/Fairfax, VA
- Dover, DE
- Norfolk, VA
- Raleigh/Durham, NC
- Charlotte, NC
- Columbia, SC
- Brunswick, GA
- Orlando, FL
- Melbourne, FL
- Naples, FL
- St. Petersburg, FL
- Mobile, AL
- Gretna/New Orleans, LA
- Lafayette, LA
- Houston, TX
- Dallas, TX
- Odessa. TX
- Las Cruces, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Diego, CA
- Port Hueneme, CA
- Contra Costa/Berkeley, CA
- Sacramento/Lodi, CA
- Redding, CA
- Newport, OR
- Garibaldi/Tillamook, OR
It was a cool day all around. The YRC did all the work to find just the right cities for our tour. Can you guess the theme?
This year's tour will begin on May 12th, lasts six weeks, and takes us over 10,000 miles before we return on June 23rd.
There will be three of us on the road this time. Kelly is a firefighter & teacher from Idaho, Kathy is our Co-Director who will be on her second time around. And me ... I have to go, cuz I do the driving. ( ;
We are turning the route this time, meaning we will head east directly from Fort Lewis. We try to coordinate all of this to line up with Memorial Day visites to the 9/11 sites ... this will be a tad "skewed" this time due to the early observance of the holiday. (Ms Liz learned something - Memorial Day is not May 31st, it is the last Monday in May. Oh, sigh. But hopefully we will still be in NYC for Fleet Week - Note to self: check dates.)
We also travel alongside Rolling Thunder riders as they make the pilgrimage to the Vietnam Wall ... So many Harleys! Very cool!
We try to leave in conjunction with National Police week to honor James G. Lewis, the Tacoma Police motorcycle officer we lost in the line of duty the same day we lost a member of our family, Army "Stryker" Sgt Jake Herring in Iraq. The tour began after I sat through both their memorials and Jake's high school retired his football jersey #55. The tour honors Jake, James, and ALL of our Fallen & Wounded ... Whether they be troops or first responders.
So every year til our troops come home from Iraq, we will drvie to 55 hometowns across North America ... this year there are THREE Canadian stops!!! (Speaking of Canada ... More about this in a few days, but wanted to note that today was a historical day for HeroToHero.US. Today Canadian first responders shipped out shirts to their troops in the desert! Well done, eh?)
These kids do a lot of the work after school and on their own time. They learned a lot and are still working it for us. Now they are going through the list and finding special things about each stop so we can make each visit even morememorable.
Their teacher, Mrs Thornton, brought in a big ol' cake, and we brought some of the left over swag from the PackOut to share with them.
As if all of this were not special enough, two of the kids shared something very special with us ... their father, home on his R&R from the desert! He told them how cool it was to see that kids were willing to volunteer their time for the troops, and how proud he was, and honored by their efforts.
He signed his units Honor shirt that will go to a special location onthe tour, and was happy to get an armful of Starbucks coffee to take back and share with the other soldiers. (We added even more coffee before we said farewell.)
I have to say I agree with his comments. Too often we hear about the negative things that kids do. If anyone wants to do a feel good story about something positive being done by kids to honor our troops, firefighters and police ... check out these kids and this teacher!
A huge thank you to Mrs Thornton, the members of the Yellow Ribbon Club, Sgt King and his entire family. You all made today even more special than I thought it would be!
lj
1 comment:
I need to know the exact dates your in Michigan so I can come and see my friend Kathy
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