Valentines for Veterans

It was cookies with a cause as Eme’s Army “marched” to Walter Reed National Military Medi­cal Center on Valentine’s Day with 200 dozen cook­ies for the veterans who spent the holiday at the hospital.

Emerie Mitchell-Butler, 5, was born with Lebers Congenital Amaurosis, a rare degenerative retinal disease that has already left her blind. Eme’s Army is the group that supports the youngsters Curing Retinal Blindness Fund at crb1.org.

“I have a group of par­ents from across the nation that have pulled together who are fighting the same rare disease,” said Emerie’s mother, Tabatha.

The family lives in Nokes­ville, where Eme attends Nokesville Elementary School. Eme walks with a white cane and is learning to read and write Braille. Before the kindergart­ner began school this fall, her mother said the fam­ily brainstormed ways to introduce the concept of Braille to the entire student body. Their solution: Sell­ing T-shirts with Braille on them.

“The very first thing we did as a fundraiser we did here,” Tabatha said, add­ing that the school, its stu­dent body and staff are ex­tremely supportive of her daughter.

As Valentine’s Day drew near, Eme’s Army came up with Valentines for Vet­erans as a way to benefit the nation’s service mem­bers and to raise money in the fight against blind­ness. Tabatha said the ef­fort exceeded her wildest dreams. Initially she though about 75 dozen cookies would sell. That number soon ballooned to 150 dozen.

By Wednesday morning, the total was 200 dozen.

“In a nutshell, we have enough cookies for pretty much every soldier and their family to have a doz­en,” she said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Costco provided the cookies for $6.99 a dozen. Supporters purchased them for $10. Chick-fil-A in Bristow helped out by dis­tributing fliers for the event, which were provided by evolutionprinting. Eme’s friends from school and Kids Klub decorated the bags that the cookies were placed in before being distributed to service members and their families at the hospital.

All donations to Eme’s Army are tax deductible. Checks can be made payable to Eme’s CRB1 Fund, 8665 Sudley Road, #382, Manassas, VA 20110. To learn more about the Mitchell-Butler family, visit their page at crb1.org. 

Initially she though about 75 dozen cookies would sell. That number soon ballooned to 150 dozen. By Wednesday morning, the total was 200 dozen.

Military editor Julia LeDoux can be reached at 703-369-5718.