Fallen soldier's Mom needs help taking care of other "kids"

UPDATE Huffington Post and CNN get Jacob's Light and Dorine Kenney attention.

What I do has no tangible value.

tangible
adjective
1.
capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; materialor substantial.
2.
real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary: thetangible benefits of sunshine.
3.
definite; not vague or elusive: no tangible grounds forsuspicion.
4.
(of an asset) having actual physical existence, as real estateor chattels, and therefore capable of being assigned a valuein monetary terms.

No matter how many hours I work helping veterans, covering their stories and doing videos, many people wonder why on earth I would need money to help me do this. I get "but you're a volunteer" all the time as if what I do has no value at all. It has been a struggle to find reasons to do this anymore when no one seems to find any value in it at all until I get an email telling me it has done some good. That said, understand how I know people doing good stop doing it if they are not supported. It is not that they stop caring. They care even more if they are forced to stop because perhaps for the first time in their lives they feel they are powerless. While most people just take care of themselves, worry about their own problems and their own families, there are people across this country doing good for total strangers. While they expect nothing back from the people they help they need someone to financially back them up so they can do the work. After all, the time spent helping others is worth something since they are not getting a paycheck for the hours gone.

So the following is about a Mom after her son was killed, taking care of troops not getting mail from home and letting them know someone does care about them. She has to not only give up her time to make their lives better, her heart is tugged by each and everyone of them, but she also has to buy what she sends to them. She needs help to do it. 285 soldiers are counting on her to send something to comfort them and open a package because she cared. Will you let all these troops down? Will you let this lady end up not being able to do good in this world because she ran out of money? Will you support someone who dedicates time and money topped off with a boat load of love? Don't let this woman wake up one morning with the regret she can't help anyone because no one helped her. I know what that feels like and believe me, it sucks the life right out of you. We keep complaining about what is wrong, wondering when someone will step up and fix the problem but we don't support them. Then we dare to wonder why no one does anything anymore unless there is something in it for them. Wonder no more and kick in a few bucks for the Mom in this story and let her know, her work is important enough to support. Donate to Jacob's Light Foundation so that we don't have to wonder why no one is doing this anymore.

A well of care packages to troops is about to run dry
Since Dorine Kenney lost her son in Iraq, she's sent thousands of boxes to service members overseas. This year's Christmas shipment was her biggest yet. But she's running short on funds.

By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times
December 21, 2010

Reporting from Middletown, N.Y. —
When Dorine Kenney learned that her son, Jacob, was going to Iraq, she looked for a way to take care of him even if she couldn't keep him safe.

She started sending a box of goodies every week — chocolate chip cookies, beef jerky, AA batteries and macaroni and cheese deluxe, his favorite.

The shopping and packing kept her from thinking about the worst. When the worst happened on Nov. 14, 2003, eight months after he parachuted into northern Iraq with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, she sat in her apartment wanting to die. She couldn't work. She couldn't eat. The only thing she could think to do was send another box.

So she packed one up for his unit and mailed it, 11 days after a roadside bomb killed Pfc. Jacob Fletcher, a paratrooper and her only child. It went out on what would have been his 29th birthday.

Every month since, Dorine Kenney has been sending care packages to Afghanistan and Iraq. This month she will send 285 13-inch cardboard cubes — a personal record. They go first to the troops who don't get mail from home, then to forward operating bases in the remote reaches of the war zones that have no access to amenities as basic as toothpaste. Really, though, she'll send a box to anyone in uniform who asks for one; more than 90% of requests for packages come from the troops themselves.

Now her funding is running out. Grant money from a Newport Beach philanthropist runs out next year and there is no new sponsor in the wings.

"It's time to put the sirens on and figure out how we're going to continue. Our troops have come to count on us," Dorine says from her two-bedroom rental where she lives and runs Jacob's Light Foundation, a military support group that grew from one mother's unbearable grief.
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A well of care packages to troops is about to run dry