A service member once said, "Please don't send cookies, care packages, or socks. Just take care of our children." Our Military Kids works every day to fulfill this plea.

Our Military Kids provides grants to the children of National Guard and Military Reserve personnel who are currently deployed overseas, as well as the children of Wounded Warriors in all branches. The grants pay for participation in extracurricular activities and tutoring programs that nurture and sustain children while a parent is away in service to our country or recovering from injury.

Along with the sacrifice of having a parent away in service for months at a time, many Guard and Reserve families are financially stretched and cannot afford the fees for sports, fine arts, or tutoring programs so crucial to a child's sense of well-being. Additionally, because these families are Guard and Reserve, they are geographically dispersed throughout the country and often live too far from military bases and installations to access the available support services.

Children of Wounded Warriors face similar financial difficulties along with the challenges of learning to adapt to the physical, mental, and emotional changes in a loved one during the lengthy process of recovery and/or rehabilitation.

"A portion of all Stars and Stripes proceeds are donated to the charity Our Military Kids