We invite you to peruse our site pages and read through the content in all of our categories and to participate in the discussions. This site is for you our OPERATION Hug-A-Hero family. We have created this online community where you can share your thoughts, pictures and videos with us and the community . Comments are welcome and encouraged. If you have a suggestion for an article or feel strongly about what you read here, please let us know by commenting. In addition to posting comments to our blog posts, you can also send us comments and or suggestions via our CONTACT US form.

Seeking Sponsors and Participants for Harley RIDE April 11 NPR FL

Spring is on the way and OPERATION Hug-A-Hero is starting to plan for events in April celebrating Month of the Military Child.  This year Operation Hug-A-Hero will be working with Gulf Coast Harley Davidson of Tampa Bay/New Port Richey, FL, to help Sponsor a unique fund raising event RIDE.

This will be a great event to support our Military Children and Operation Hug-A-Hero. If you own a motorcycle (does not have to be a Harley), come on out and show your support during April - Month of the Military Child! On Sunday, April 11th, cruise on out to Gulf Coast Harley Davidson to join all in support of this great cause! Registration at 10am (early registration on our website or by walking in to GCHD). Just an hour run and come back to enjoy free giveaways, Live Music, Plenty of Vendors, Food and more. A special appearance by a gentleman who lost his son in the war and has turned his son’s bike into a Military Bike in Memory of him. Most importantly, you are supporting our Little Heroes left behind who are proudly waiting for their own Hero to return.

GREAT sponsorship opportunities! Become our MAIN sponsor and your company gets to lead this ride, all the media coverage surrounds YOUR name! Several levels of sponsorship available. T-shirt space, Vendor Booths, Banner space, Donate Raffle Prizes with your name on it, etc.! Contact Lisa Berg for more information!

TWO ways to register for this event :

1. Select our On Line Registration Process, and pay by Credit Card or via PayPal

2. Or you can Down Load a Registration Form (below) and mail a check to OHAH:

Registration Form:

Event Flyer:

Vote Operation Hug-A-Hero into CauseWorld!

Our Military Families need our help more than ever, and now you have a chance to help them by helping OPERATION-Hug-A-Hero, and its’ as simple as a vote.

Vote Operation Hug-A-Hero into CauseWorld!

We are listed as (Support our men in service with: Operation Hug-A-Hero)

CauseWorld is an iPhone and Android phone application that allows users to earn free donations for their favorite non-profits just by walking into any store.

CauseWorld app users earn “karma points” when they walk into stores and check in with their cell phone. No purchase is required at any store, and karma points can be redeemed nine predefined good causes. Big brands like Kraft Foods and Citi (both are on board) then turn the karmas into real dollar donations to those causes. Food for poor families, water in Sudan, trees in the Amazon, etc. are examples of the causes.

Here’s how it works: You open the application on your phone and see local businesses (instead of showing everything around you, CauseWorld only shows businesses that you can check into for karmas). Enter the store, check in, and get the karma points offered to you. Once you’ve collected enough karmas you can donate them to a variety of causes and you get badges for various activities. And of course we would like you to be able to select Operation-Hug-A-Hero from the list of available causes so you can help us continue our mission while enjoying this neat application,

CauseWorld, “the first mobile application that let’s you do good deeds simply for walking into a store.” The application is currently available on the CauseWorld web site for both the iPhone and Adroid based phones.The iPhone version is also available from the appstore and soon the application will become available for more mobile platforms.

In order for Operation-Hug-A-Hero to be listed as one of the causes on this application, we need your help, we need you to VOTE and then tell a friend and a family member to VOTE .

We thank you and our Hug-A-Hero kids will thank you even more.

It’s really a very simple thing to do that can have the net effect of you being able to help our military family’s and their children, if we can get listed on the CauseWorld Application.

15 different organizations have been selected for the public to vote, and the top 3 causes will be invited to join. Voting ends on February 28, 2010 and the winners will be announced shortly afterwards. The voting poll can be accessed on the Cause World blog at http://blog.causeworld.com

Related Posts:

A Call to action: How YOU can help us spread the word

A Call to action: How YOU can help us spread the word.

15 actions you can do to help us spread the word.

It’s been an interesting two weeks with  the news of the earthquake in Haiti and the ensuing calls for support to help their country in their hour of need. The support has been nothing short of phenomenal from all the stories I have read and all the donations pouring in from all across the world and in our own country here in the United States, there are literally thousands if unique Fundraising events to help the impoverished nation and ailing peoples of Haiti.

Now let’s step back a moment and take a look at this to see what it means to our own country.  Our United States mobilized in record time additional military resources, our countries finest Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen were sent on deployment for undetermined lengths of time to help Haiti.  For many this is their first time away from home for extended deployments from their families. Right now no one knows how long this operation will continue, but it is sure to be many months. We also still have thousands of our military men and women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq with more scheduled to depart every day for lengthy deployments away from their husbands, wives and children.

This post is a request, a CALL TO ACTION to ALL whom will read this:

Whether you are a current subscriber to our weekly OPERATION Hug-A-Hero Newsletter, or possibly an RSS Newsreader subscriber, if you’re a Facebook Cause Member or you are reading this from a TWEET on Twitter or just a passerby looking to see what we are all about. Perhaps you came across the Operation Hug-A-Hero blog from somewhere in the Blogosphere?

How you arrived here does not matter. What you do here is of great importance to us and our Military Families. We are not asking for money…or Donations, (although you are more than welcome to contribute to enrich a young child’s life should you so desire to do so….and it is tax deductible too) or as you are shopping online be sure to visit iGive.com. If you buy anything, Operation Hug-A-Hero gets an automatic donation from your purchase.

What we are asking for is an infinitesimal (extremely small) moment of your time to help spread the word about our cause. Haiti is extremely important, but we want to make sure that everyone knows who is helping and that they may in turn need some help of their own. At least the Children whose parents are answering our Nations call to duty. Let’s not forget them!

Here’s what you can do to help:

Please perform one of these small tasks below to help us spread the word about our Mission.

Please HELP US and share our OPERATION Hug-A-Hero site with others:

1. Click on the Share/Save Button Below the article for this post (share or email from here)
2. Forward this post/article in an email to friends, family, neighbors or co-workers
3. Forward your Newsletter to friends, family, neighbors or co-workers
4. Post this article on your Facebook Page
5. Share with your Facebook Friends from the FB Share Button above or the Share/Save Button Below
6. Add our Facebook Cause to your Facebook
7. Tweet this article from the Tweet Button Above or the Share/Save Button Below
8. Follow us on Twitter
9. Retweet this article
10. Make a comment on an article of interest on the site.
11. Subscribe and Watch us on YouTube
12. Sign up for the Operation Hug-A-Hero Newsletter
13. Sign up for our RSS Feed
14. Send our URL (Web site address) to a friends, family, neighbors or co-workers
15. Send an email to
feedback@causeworld.com and ask them to include Operation Hug-A-Hero in their nonprofit listing.

Our President gets it. In a statement today prior to his State of the Union address on Wednesday, President Obama stated “military families welfare is an important part of U.S. national security”.

After all, this is what OPERATION HUG-A-HERO is all about.

For more information on the Mental Health & Welfare issues that our Deployed families routinely deal with please read the related post below.

Wives & Military Deployments – SPECIAL REPORT by NEJM

Children & Military Deployments – SPECIAL REPORT -

Wives & Military Deployments – SPECIAL REPORT by NEJM

An interesting story published on Thursday January 14th, 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Deployment and the Use of Mental Health Services among U.S. Army Wives” discovered that the wives of soldiers deployed suffered higher mental health issues.

This was the largest study ever undertaken. The results are very conclusive and indicate “that the mental health effects of current military operations are extending beyond soldiers and into their immediate families.”

The study shows again “that when a service member deploys, the entire family deploys,” said Air Force Maj. April Cunningham, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The results of this study mirror the findings from the RAND Corp. study of military children that we reported on last month in our Operation Hug-A-Hero SPECIAL REPORT,Children and Military Deployments that discusses Deployment Effects on Children of Military Families. The NEJM story details the fact that Children of deployed parents suffer more emotional issues, particularly if separations are long or the parent at home is troubled.

It’s a fact … kids do worse when Mom does worse. “So if spouses are more likely to need mental health services as deployment times increase, than their kids are more at risk.”

The NEJM story is pretty technical, so if you want an easier read, I would suggest the USA Today summary that you can read by clicking here: Army wives with deployed husbands suffer higher mental health issues.

The NEJM report along with the RAND report signify that  children of military parents are adversely impacted emotionally with a parent who is deployed away from home for significant amount of time. This is the main reason that Operation Hug-A-Hero was created. We can and have made huge positive psychological impacts to the children that are recipients of our FREE Hug-A-Hero® dolls.

Download a copy of this Report

Castro Family Testimonial

With the recent news of President Obama’s  announcement for troop increases to Afghanistan, we have seen a huge upsurge in family’s requesting our services. We are pleased to be able to support our little hero’s as the Moms and Dads deploy to support us all.

This is a recent recipients letter of thanks. From the Castro’s an Army Family living in Germany.

The Family Story as Told by the deploying father, Sergeant Castro

I have a 2 year old son that just broke my heart saying goodbye to. We are very close to each other. Since I left he would cry for me. It breaks my heart for my wife to deal with this every day for a year.

This is the recent email we received from Imani’s mom

Thank you so much for this wonderful program! Imani received his Daddy Doll today and was so excited to get to hug and kiss his miniature daddy!

Imani is 2 1/2 years old and this is already his 2nd deployment. His Dad left for Afghanistan the first time when he was only 6 days old and just recently left again for another tour last month. He was so excited to own his Daddy Doll. He now takes him everywhere in the house. Once again, thank you for this wonderful gift..

Respectfully,

Julie Castro

Related Posts:

Beltran Family Testimonial

Afghanistan Troop Surge – Public Opportunity to support littlest hero’s

Deployment Effects on Children of Military Families – SPECIAL REPORT -

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