Project RED Friday is very involved in more than just raising awareness by wearing RED. We also provide the following services;
New Recruits
PRF works with local recruiting offices and has the opportunity to meet with recruits as they leave for basic training. This is a special time where we encourage these young men and women before they leave, we also send them to basic training with a bible, a journal and a challenge coin. Sometimes these young people have a great send off with family and friends while at other times they are by them selves, so this is a very meaningful time for us to spend with them and make their departure easier to deal with.
(see pictures in the gallery tab)
Care Package Deliveries
Three times each year we will load up care packages and personally deliver them to military bases around the United States. There is so much more meaning to the gift when you hand it to a person and get the opportunity to see their smile and experience their thankfulness in person. We usually deliver these to units that are either just returning from deployment and have nothing in their barracks, or to a unit just getting ready to go on rotation for deployment. We have even delivered to companies graduating from basic training and single Marines.
We have been to: Ft Wainwright, Alaska / Ft Polk, Louisiana / Ft Jackson, South Carolina / 138th Fighter Wing, Oklahoma / 137th Fighter Wing, Oklahoma / 188th Fighter Wing, Arkansas / Ft Campbell, Kentucky / Camp Lejeune, North Carolina / Ft. Carson, Colorado / Ft. Riley, Kansas / Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia / Ft. Drum, New York
(see pictures in the gallery tab)
School Program
We visit schools to promote awareness for our Armed Forces. Kids today have a need to be reminded of the sacrifices made by men and women in uniform who protect our liberty and our freedom. With the permission of the Arkansas Board of Education, PRF goes into area schools. We are allowed to talk to the students about our military, what it means to be deployed, what those sacrifices look like both for the Armed Forces Member and for their family.
How does this work in the school? We talk to the students about our military, explaining the different challenges faced by deployed troops in all branch's! Each student designs a care package box and builds a care package! Each student writes a letter or colors a picture! The goal is to encourage a “Pin Pal” correspondence between the student and the soldier!
Students really enjoy designing the box's and filling them. They generally have many questions.
(see pictures in all the picture galleries)
Memorial Day Flag Garden
Every year we honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. We honor them with a flag garden, located on Dixieland Road in Lowell Arkansas. Our Flag garden will line the median starting on the south end near Hyw 264 and go North as far as we can with the flags we have, Each year we get more flags which allows us to go farther than the previous year.
Veterans Day Parade
On November 11, our country honors men and women who have served in our Armed Forces. Although there are various events on the same date, Project RED Friday, along with the City of Lowell wanted to make this extra special. This parade has various entries from marching bands to WW2 half tracks. Starting at Fast Lanes Entertainment on Dixie Land Road, the parade goes South on Dixieland and is approximately 1 mile long. This is for the Veterans but we honor active duty, guard and reserve as well.
RED FRIDAY FARMs
Red Friday Farms is a working farm, focusing on Hydroponics as a way to “sustain”the current and future programs of PRF. The goal of the farm is to have veterans working the farm to make it successful.
We are also creating a retreat for Active duty service men and women, and their families, as well as Gold Star families.
There will be a particularly excessive effort to curve the 22 Veteran a day, committing suicide (it is a tragedy that those two words are used in the same sentence). If someone is on the edge and needs help, At our expense we will bring them to the farm and help them work through their issues.
There are many reasons why these men and women are where they are, TBI, PTS, finances, homelessness, relationships, etc. We will not judge them, we will harness them to our hearts and love them with arms wide open.
Operation Rucksack
Care Package on steroids;
2016, 146 to Ft Polk, LA
2017, 250 to Ft Campbell, KY
2018, 405 to Naval Station Norfolk, USS Keasarge
2019, 700 to Fort Drum, NY
Affiliations
Service and Sacrifice, Tribute Truck; Ed Harwell, has a real labor of love invested into his cab over truck. With untold man hours and money, Ed took an old truck from a farmers field and turned it into a head turning piece of art. Ed proudly displays this truck every chance he gets, you never know where "Service and Sacrifice" might be next, but you can follow Ed on his facebook page, /Service&Sacrifice.
Wreaths Across America
Remember, Honor, Teach, this is the mission of Wreaths Across America. There are men and women who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. There is nothing more honorable that a person can do. The tragedy is when these names are forgotten. WAA, works hard to instill the three areas of:
Remember, don't forget these men and women and the sacrifice they made.
Honor, it is a simple wreath, but it bestows a vast amount of honor towards the person who made the sacrifice.
Teach, we cannot let our generations forget the high price of liberty and freedom. we must stay vigilant in teaching them what the cost is and why it is necessary.