Fundraiser on Tuesday May 15th at O’Tooles Pub 4800 Forest Hill Ave Richmond VA to help fund the Veterans Resource Village at the Carillon. Festivities begin at 7:00 PM and will continue until we all fall down.
My world-famous, eat from the jar with a spoon BBQ Sauce will be available for purchase in pints and quarts.
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Just a short post to let you know that my new book, “A Different View: Travels with Team Easy, Iraq 2007″ is now out and available for purchase. Ten percent of profits will be going to Cooking with the Troops. Nuff said.
Read MoreThe West Carmel Red Robin (9965 N. Michigan Road, redrobin.com) is hosting an Indianapolis-area fundraiser on Wednesday 29 February for Cooking with the Troops. The restaurant is donating ten percent of their proceeds for the day to the charity to help support U.S. and Allied troops, their families, and caregivers.
“We are proud to help an Indiana-based charity that is doing so much for out troops and veterans,” says Sean Keefe, general manager of the restaurant. “Everyone on our team is excited to be involved with a charity the gives back to our deserving troops. To help them as they help with things from nutrition to jobs is something we are glad to do, especially given their upcoming event on D-Day.”
The fundraiser will run from 11 am to 10 pm, and the afternoon will see something special. From 2-4 PM, Indianapolis-area bestselling author Michael Z. Williamson will be signing 100 copies of his books, given to those coming in and buying a meal in support of Cooking with the Troops. The books are a donation from publisher Baen Books.
“We can’t begin to thank Red Robin enough for this,” states C. Blake Powers, CEO of Cooking with the Troops. “We have requests for a number of events from troops and wounded, some young veterans who will be catering a very special reception at Normandy on D-Day, and are working to help get a chef to Afghanistan to cook for some of the troops out in remote locations. Doing all this takes money and support, and this will be a huge help to those efforts.”
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Read MoreThere are five very special women in my life. Yep, five. Five whom I am lucky to know, and, they even sorta like me. What’s more, some of them are even married. Yep, I went there — married. What’s more, they make me proud to know them because of what they do.
Ellen Adams is a 20-year Air Force veteran who embarked on a very different career on leaving the service. She went to culinary school in the U.S. and in Italy, and became a personal chef. On top of that, she volunteered to develop the Homefront Program for Cooking with the Troops. Last year, she took time off from her work to develop the program, conduct the initial and proof-of-concept events, and is already at work on improving and expanding the program.
Heather Solos is a child of the military, a former professional chef, and now blogger and author. Despite getting her new career off the ground, and being a mom, she has devoted a lot of time and effort to Cooking with the Troops. This included helping with food events and serving as Ellen’s second in command on the Homefront Program events at the Warrior and Family Support Center at BAMC. Like Ellen, she’s working to help us grow and do more for as many more as we can.
Marta Darby is a proud mother, cook, and blogger — and a long-time food crush of mine for her recipes at Babalu Blog. How can you not love a woman who when asked to come cook for 200 or so (that turned out to be 350 or so) at BAMC, not only shows up but brings her husband, two sons, and two daughters along at her own expense to help? Who continues to support the troops and Cooking with the Troops?
Amy and Lucy are Marta’s daughters. Two wonderful young ladies who can smoke a cigar, play dominos, and cook like nobody’s business. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP!! Their work ensured not only good food, but they made sure that more than 350 were served with a smile and love as if members of their own family. LUUUCCCCYYYYY! Nope, no photo as they are too young and innocent to be exposed to this crowd. 
I’m incredibly lucky to know these women, and I don’t say it to them often enough. Thank you.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
LW
Cross posted at Blackfive
Read MoreIf you go to our 2011 press release page, you will see that we have adopted an operational structure that will help us grow. As part of that, we have begun advertising (inter)nationally for the following positions. Big thanks to Ned’s Job of the Week newsletter/site for their help with this! Here’s what we are seeking, but note that these are volunteer positions for now:
Managing Director: We are seeking someone with a proven track record in
non-profit management and growth to run our day-to-day activities.
This person will help us grow, keep up with regulatory requirements and
deadlines, and try to ride herd on a growing base of volunteers.
This position reports to the CEO.
Director of Communications: We are seeking someone who can handle the
rapid changes in the industry, has the skills and the contacts to make
things happen, and has a passion for both communications and what we do.
This position reports to the CEO.
Director of Development: We are seeking someone who can handle
fundraising, grants, and all the other activities related to creating a
state-of-the-art development program from scratch. This position
reports to the CEO.
Social Media Manager: We need someone who has the knowledge, energy,
and skills to take on this important and growing facet of our
communications programs. Much of our growth has come from this area,
and we seek someone who can build on that to take those efforts to new
heights. This position reports to the Director of Communications.
Media Manager: This person will be responsible for specialized and
traditional media activities. They need to have solid skills, current
connections, and the ability to reach the right people in traditional
media from New York to Landstuhl. This position reports to the Director
of Communications.
If anyone (else) on the list is in the Lafayette, Indiana area, we are
also seeking some bookkeeping and admin help local to our headquarters
(such as it is).
Cooking with the Troops is an equal opportunity organization.
Despite any jokes made about the Air Force or other lesser services,
Cooking with the Troops does not discriminate based on branch of
service, gender, race, or religion. We do reserve the right to mess with
bean counters and REMFs at any and all opportunities.
To apply, ask questions, or just tell us we are nuts, contact
ceo@cwtt.org
Veteran’s Day. A day to honor those who have served.
This day, Cooking with the Troops will be doing so through a very special event at the NASDAQ MarketSite. The day will start at 0730 as some special events take place, and move into a day of cooking demonstrations, a luncheon, and the closing bell ceremony.
We are honored to have some very special guests with us. We will be having the first participants in the Vets2Chefs program join us during they day, and some other veterans are scheduled to join us as well. One very special veteran is Phil Perugini, who was in Easy Company, of Band of Brothers fame.
We will also have cooking demonstrations being done in the MarketSite:
0935: Chef Luque of the historic Thayer Hotel
1030: Fairway Market’s Culinary Display team
1130: Chef Paul Niedermann, winner of Season 9 of Hell’s Kitchen
1230: Chef Ellen Adams, for Cooking with the Troops
There is a luncheon at 1300, and there will be a very special closing bell ceremony for the day. Check out our Twitter feed for updates and more, as well as our Facebook page.
It will also be a very special day as an online fundraiser organized by 3Media Partners will kick off. This effort will help us do more this year, as well as taking us into the new year on a very good footing — we hope.
Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
Read MoreOur thanks to all the great people at Inside INdiana Business for having us down yesterday! Here’s a teaser for this week’s show, and you can find the schedule for who is broadcasting the show here. And, yes, we will try to post the video of the segment here or on Facebook once it airs.
Read MoreFor those interested, I’m on my way in a bit to Indianapolis to be interviewed on Inside Indiana Business. They are interested in Cooking with the Troops, and the special event we have coming up at the NASDAQ MarketSite on Veteran’s Day. Stay tuned for more on the latter, as the event is shaping up very well; and, will post more on when and where you can see the interview if you are interested.
Read MoreFor those interested, I’ve just posted a copy of our 2010 IRS Form 990 in the 2010 Financial Section. In addition, I’ve put up a PDF of our 2010 Annual Report and our 2011 tri-fold brochure in publications.
Read MoreSorry for the delays in posting, but there is a LOT going on right now. Not the least of which is that we are delighted to welcome several new members to our Board of Directors and to our National Advisory Board. The full details are here, and we hope you will check them out and join us in welcoming them.
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