Snowball Express has a mission of “creating hope and new memories for the children of our fallen military heroes”. They do this through all-expense-paid gatherings for children, where these kids are treated like royalty and get the opportunity to meet and build relationships with other kids just like them.  We believe they are making a huge difference in the lives of so many of our heroes children. The Travis Manion Foundation has a mission of “assisting our nation’s veterans and families of Fallen Heroes”.

Funds given to the Travis Manion Foundation will be going to a very cool program they do, Challenge Grants. These grants are given to surviving families that will complete a project of their choice to keep the memory of their loved one alive (think service projects, education, physical challenges, etc). These grants are a beautiful way to bring families together to honor and remember their loved one and keep their memory alive for many years to come.

To find out more about these two organizations check out their websites. We hope you will be as excited as we are about these partnerships! With so many great organizations out there, honoring our fallen military, it was hard to select just two, but we truly believe these organizations are doing amazing things and The 31Heroes Project can’t wait to be a part of it!

www.SnowballExpress.org

www.TravisManion.com

We do understand that many still would like to find ways to support the specific 30 families of the August 6th tragedy. We are in the process of compiling information regarding each family’s memorial fund. This way, should you feel called to give specifically to one of these families; you have access to the tools to do so. In addition, as we had previously stated that a portion of new funds raised (since September 2011) would be going directly to the families, we will remain true to that word during 2012.

As far as the workout, it will always belong only to these 31. As different Hero WODs belong to different heroes, the “31Heroes WOD” belongs to the men and military dog that gave their lives on August 6th. Each year we do this WOD we are recognizing and honoring their great sacrifice.

At this time, we are thoroughly researching different organizations that provide immediate and long-term support for surviving families. We would love your help in doing so and will post a survey to our Facebook page tomorrow, so that you may provide any feedback or input you may have. We believe it is very important that we do our due diligence, so that you may know exactly where every dollar you give is going and can say, “because I gave $__, these families were able to _______.” We promise to always remain financially transparent. As our new website gets up and running, we will have a space set aside to post these updates on a consistent basis.

With that, keep an eye out for some other new & excited things coming up with The 31Heroes Project!

• We are officially now a not-for-profit 501(c)3 pending organization. This means upon our final qualification, all 2012 donations will be tax deductible.
• The remaining shirts from last year will (finally) be for sale by the end of the week!!
• Our new (and fantastic) website will be up within the next couple weeks
• We are working through the final details of this year’s event (August 4, 2012), so that you may have smoother registration, hosting Affiliates can receive RSVPs, & you can receive your memorial shirt not only quickly, but before the event.

Check back often to our website & FB page for updates on all of the above & more. Thanks so much for reading through this quite lengthy update! We hope you are as excited as we are for what is to come.