Neighborhood Nonprofit Spotlight: A Soldier's Child Foundation

Patch talks to A Soldier's Child Foundation about the important work it does for the children and families of fallen military personnel.

Patch: Tell Patch a little bit about your organization!

A Soldier's Child: Our mission is to serve the children of fallen military personnel who have given their lives on active duty while defending the United States of America. Birthdays are one of the most intimate events shared between parent and child. The planning and anticipation of gifts and time spent with friends and family are enduring rites of passage that shape our lives.

Unfortunately, the men and women in the military who so willingly give of themselves to protect these landmarks of life often miss the celebrations. For those warriors who have paid the ultimate sacrifice with their lives, there will be no opportunities to celebrate birthdays with their children. A Soldier's Child Foundation wants the children of our fallen heroes to know that their birthdays will still be celebrated and that their parents will never be forgotten. This is a way of honoring the fallen parent on their special day. A Soldier's Child has three program focus areas.

#1. Birthday Celebrations. Celebrating our recipient’s birthdays every year up to the age 18.

#2. Mentorship programs. We offer a Journey Camp experience for our recipient’s between the ages of 10 – 16. This is a week-long camp hosted by ASC and our kids are encouraged to attend it for 3 years. We also offer some very exciting hunting and fishing programs currently in Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana. Lastly, we offer a young adult leadership retreat weekend for ASC recipients 19 years of age and older.

#3. College Scholarships. ASC facilitates in college scholarships for $1000.00 and up to $35,000.00 for our ASC recipients through our partner organization; The Children of fallen Patriots Foundation. We presently have over 2500 children in all 50 states and expect to exceed 2500 children by the year’s end. We are so very grateful for you and others all over our country committed to help us honor our National Treasure, the Children of our Fallen Military Servicemen and Servicewomen.

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Patch: How does your organization help to strengthen the local community?

A Soldier's Child: There is no program anywhere that provides these our services (specifically birthday celebration) to the children of fallen military persons. Our programming is designed to help make healing happen in the lives of these children and to remind them that their sacrifice and their parent's legacy is not forgotten. All of the local TV stations have done stories on ASC, and the Associated Press did a documentary on how children cope with the loss of a parent to war and used our Journey Camp experience as its subject. It can be viewed on our web site www.asoldierschild.org

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Patch: What is the biggest struggle your organization faces?

A Soldier's Child: Financial support for our major program expenses (birthday gifts and Journey Camp) will allow our organization to grow in other areas and expand services. We currently serve 2500 children. This number will grow and ASC will need to expand its organizational capacity along with that growth. Our desire is to expand programming to offer a variety of options in activities and healing activities, but at this point we are limited by our funding.

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Patch: What do you hope for the future of your nonprofit?

A Soldier's Child: Unfortunately, the number of men and women who die while on active duty continues to grow. Some of these deaths are due directly from combat; others are suicide related, heart attacks, training accidents and others. Subsequently, the number of children who will be eligible to receive ASC services this year will continue to increase.

In order to accommodate the increasing demand for programming, ASC will need to focus on its organizational structure and sustainability. Currently there are only 3 paid employees at A Soldier’s Child. Specifically, we are asking for support to fund our program services so that we may focus on growing and stabilizing our organization over the next year. 87% of every dollar spent goes to program and services to our ASC children.

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