Our January
special guest, Ariel
Lynne Moore
January’s meeting provided an exciting time for the new year. We got to meet our newest guest of honor, Ariel. She is a three-month-old yellow lab puppy that we sponsor through our ongoing charity, Patriot Paws in Rockwall. This wonderful charity trains service dogs to help those veterans who need a service dog in their daily lives. Ariel was born in September of 2023 and has been training for eight weeks now. At the end of her two and a half years of training, she will learn 65 cues and commands and will be assigned to a veteran at no cost to that veteran. Support Our Troops (SOT) has donated $169,000 to Patriot Paws since 2008. Ariel is the third dog we have sponsored as a club. She received a multitude of pats and was a wonderful and well-behaved guest! So much of what SOT is able to do is thanks to the generous Robson Ranch residents and donors to our club. Thank you for that.
Presently, we support 92 military, both deployed and not deployed. Nine of the supported military are now deployed to Germany, Guam, the UK, Okinawa, Djibouti, and Bahrain. In 2023 we shipped over 420 boxes of goodies to deployed military, as well as Christmas checks sent to all the troops we support.
Thanks to our Sassy Stampers, who make the most beautiful patriotic cards, we are able to send a card with a written note to deployed military we support every month, and non-deployed military get a card every quarter. The Sassy Stampers also make beautiful cards for birthdays and Christmas.
The Veterans Day Silent Auction in 2023 netted over $36,000, which is a record for the auction. We thank those who worked so hard to make the auction such a success and to the Robson residents who support us every year. Thanks to all!
Coming up later this year is our other fundraiser, the SOT Golf Tournament. It will be held on Friday, April 26, here at the Wildhorse Golf Course. Last year the tournament brought in $21,000. Hopefully, this year will be even better. It’s a really fun event that also includes some military golfers whom we support. More information on this event will be forthcoming. Please know that every dollar we raise goes to support those men and women in our military whom we support.
Most of you know about our Veterans Park and the bricks that honor those Robson Ranch residents and their current and prior relatives who have served. One of those who has a brick in the park is John Gaunt. He was a private in the Union Army during the Civil War. Gaunt received the Medal of Honor for capturing the heavily guarded Confederate flag during a battle near Franklin, Tenn. You can read about Gaunt in the Veterans book located in the clubhouse.
SOT offers flag kits so that you can display the American flag in your yard. The flag kits cost $60, and we only use U.S.-made flags. A member of SOT will install your flag. If you already have a flagpole but need a new flag, they can be ordered for $30 and will be delivered to you. The person to call for this is Quinn Sowell at 940-262-1106.
SOT meets every month in the clubhouse on the second Monday of the month at 1 p.m. in the Lone Star Room. You do not have to have served in the military to be a member of SOT, and we would love to welcome you to our group. Hope to see you then.