Editor’s note: The following is a thank-you letter from the Band of Brothers to the supporters of its highly successful 2020 ‘Help Us Help Kids from 1 to 92’ Christmas campaign.

BUCKHANNON — To our friends across Upshur County, we, the Buckhannon Band of Brothers, extend our sincere appreciation for your generous support of our “2020 Help us Help Kids from 1 to 92” Campaign. Our goal was to try to brighten the lives of nursing home residents over Christmas.

If you followed our journey, you know that our fund raising expectations were low due to the pandemic. We thought we were over optimistic hoping we could maybe help 10-12 homes. Little did we know that we would be successful beyond our imagination.

Due to the overwhelming support of the people and businesses/organizations here in Upshur County and, friends and businesses far and wide, we were able to raise $52,000, which allowed us to bless 34 nursing homes in 15 counties. In addition to the nursing homes, we were also able to support several local organizations for the fifth year in a row: Parish House, a regional youth drug recovery program, Christmas Store for needy kids, backpack program, youth missions group, prison angel tree program and the local senior center outreach program.

Over the past several weeks, we have received cards, letters, phone calls, emails and even one newspaper article from nursing home staffs across North Central West Virginia thanking us for our donations that helped them make this past Christmas special for their residents. The staff at the Madison Center Nursing Home in Morgantown sent a beautiful homemade thankyou card and wrote the words we wanted to hear, “Your generous donation to the residents of the Madison Center helped put a smile on our their faces during such a difficult time.”

The Clarksburg Nursing & Rehabilitation Center used their funds to buy Christmas gifts for their residents as well as some items they can use year round such as a cotton candy machine and a snow cone machine.  Other nursing homes made similar purchases.

The West Virginia Veterans Nursing Home put on special holiday events throughout December as well as purchasing iPads for the vets and individual gifts The Terra Alta facility activities director summed up most nursing home responses, “From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to thank you for your generous donation.  To be thinking of our Nursing home residents, and many others, during this pandemic is very much appreciated.”

We could not have come close to blessing as many residents as we did without the wonderful support of the people of  Upshur County and our businesses, banks, churches, charitable/service organizations, and clubs. Locally, people purchased calendars and made donations from $10 to $2,000.  That was supplemented by people across the state, country and as far away as Canada and England.  We had many individuals outside of the Band of Brothers who volunteered to sell calendars. 

We could have never sold a 1,000 without dear friends helping us.  Thank you to all those kind people and to all who purchased calendars and made donations. We have so many people locally who are always there for us and the causes we support.  That is what makes our community special.  Then there are the surprises from strangers.  One day, I was pulling into Lowe’s and my phone rings.  It was a lady from Elkins and she had heard about our initiative.  She wanted more information about our project. which I provided.  The following week we received a $1,000 check “for the important work” we were doing. As you can see, friends and strangers blessed us beyond expectation.

In addition to individuals, the Upshur County business community, churches and various organizations did what they always do – stepped forward to make a difference in worthwhile causes.  As our campaign was blessed immeasurably by their financial support, we created an ‘Honor Roll’ as shown to recognize their wonderful support. The threshold for the honor roll was $100 in donations and/or calendar purchases.  We also had a few others that would have made the honor roll, but they chose to remain anonymous. 

We were overwhelmed by the $5,000 gifts we received from Cheetah Exploration and Production and the Buckhannon Upshur Rotary. While they led the charge, we are extremely grateful to all the organizations who propelled us to our record fund raising amount last year. We are grateful for the strong support by three Elkins businesses, the Wendy’s group (Primary Aim), which has stores throughout the region, and our friends from Mountaineer Photo Excursions in Southern West Virginia.  We are also grateful to Create Buckhannon, the Frank Bartlett American Legion Post #7 and My Buckhannon for partnering with us in this year’s campaign. Overall, it truly was a cooperative Upshur County initiative.

From all of us in the Band of Brothers, we say “good on ya” to all who made this year’s campaign a resounding success.  We close with the following sentiments from the staff of the Madison Center:

Band of Brothers 2020 “We can help too!” Honor Roll (as of January 13, 2021)

This is a list of businesses and organizations that heled us brighten the day for nursing home residents as part of our 2020 “Help us Help Kids from 1 to 92” Campaign. All of these contributed $100 or more.

(Note: Major donation signifies $500 or more.)

• Anderegg Jewelers – Purchased calendars
• Angelic Designs LLC/Glory Magazines- Sold calendars, marketing & design work/Christmas Cards
• Appalachian Mineral Title Company, LLC — Major donation
• Breath of God Worship – Purchased calendars and ongoing prayer support
• Buckhannon Family Dental – Donation and purchased calendars
• Buckhannon Seventh Day Adventist — Donation
• Buckhannon Upshur Camera Club – Donation and sold calendars
• Chapel Hill Women – Sold calendars
• Cheetah Exploration and Production LLC — $5,000 Donation
• Chenoweth Ford — Donation
• Cj Maggie’s – Donation/Purchased calendars. Plus, donation of time and energy.
• Corhart Refractories – Donation/purchased calendars
• Create Buckhannon – $2,400 from their Chicken Dinner Sale
• Denex Petroleum — Donation
• Frank Bartlett American Legion Post 7 – Donation and purchased & sold calendars
• Freedom Bank – Donation
• Full Gospel Church- Major donation
• Hank Ellis’ Insurance Agency – Purchased calendars
• Jenkins Ford – Donation
• Jenkins Subaru — Donation
• Just Baked – Cookie sale by Debbie Huber, and donated cookies for the WV Veterans Nursing Facility
• Mike Ross, Inc. – Donation/purchased calendars
• Mountain Photo Excursions/Evans, WV — Purchased & selling calendars
• Mountain Roaster Coffee – Purchased calendars
• My Buckhannon – Purchased & selling calendars, extensive marketing.
• Paramount Construction Company WV – Major Donation
• Paramount Safety Supplies — Major Donation
• Performance Motors (Elkins) — Donation
• Premier Bank – Donation
• Primary Aim LLC (A North Central WV Wendy’s Corporation) — Major donation
• Randall Hughes Ministry/Tom Anderson Mission Center — Donation
• Rotary Club of Buckhannon Upshur – $5,000 donation
• Roy’s RV Supercenter/Elkins – Purchased calendars & donation
• Sam’s Pizza – Purchased calendars & donation
• Sedosky and Associates – Purchased calendars
• Sweet ~A~ Licious – Sold calendars
• Tennerton Lions – Sold calendars
• Twin Oaks Home Sales – Purchased calendars
• Way of Holiness — Major Donation