Hello, Camp Snoops Friends, Family and Newbies!
With Covid19 upon us, a lot of changes are happening! Store, restaurant, park and even school closings are cramping our style! This is a time when Camp Snoops is usually hustling and bustling at the post office and in schools getting our postcards and financial assistance packed up and sent off to various spots across the country, helping to establish and support Memorial Day Remembrances for children, families and communities. We are out among many other groups volunteering at cemeteries posting flags for all those veterans who have passed away. We are cutting and creating star packets in our classrooms to distribute to veterans as a small thank you, following in the steps of www.starsforourtroops.org. We are continuing the mission of Sandy Mount Elementary in Finksburg, MD who first presented a beautiful, educational Memorial Day in 2006 honoring our beloved Matt and planted the seeds for the LCpl Matt Snyder Camp Snoops Project to take root.
This spring, since so many of us are inside with our children bringing the classroom into our homes, Camp Snoops will be sharing some stories from the lessons we have presented at our annual St. Mary School Memorial Day Remembrance in Schwenksville, PA. We will also post a link to the video, song, story—whatever is shared—so that you may enhance your Memorial Day home schooling sessions.
Over the years, we have introduced stories that reach all different ages—first graders, fifth graders, eighth graders, parents. Many years, there are tears in the eyes of our parents; our veterans in attendance tell us that they have never been to a more respectful and gracious event; students recognize the honor these men and women deserve and they speak to them respectfully and with interest; reporters look forward to the event with camera and notepad in hand; veteran posts call to volunteer color guards and post flags; poppies are distributed so everyone has a ‘take-away’ that they can keep and…remember. Our thought has always been that if we can reach just one child and communicate the effort and sacrifice that our volunteer military exerts each day in its mission to defend not only our country, but many other countries around the world, we have accomplished our goal. If we can reach more, that is prime!
We hope each of you will share at least one, but maybe all, of the links this year with your children, family, friends, or just YOU! We hope you learn something new, just as we do, when we research and select something to include in our presentations each year. Please keep our military active and retired in your thoughts that they remain safe. Please honor our military dead by silently thanking them for bringing peace and freedom to our lives so many times in the last several centuries of our American past. Remember their stories, learn from them, pass them on and don’t let them be for naught.
Our first story we will share with you is the story of the Makin Island Marines, and the endless search and recovery missions a special group of people continue each and every day in this country to bring our men and women classified as MIA and/or POW back home to the United States. (presented May 28, 2010) https://www.military-history.us/2014/02/the-makin-raid-of-1942-and-the-recovery-of-the-marines-lost-after-the-battle/