My name is Jeff Kraus. I am the Motorcycle Community Liaison for Operation Gratitude (www.operationgratitude.com), a 501(C) 3 military charity based in Van Nuys, CA. Over the past 12 years it has mailed over 1,200,000 care packages to our nation’s service members deployed in hostile regions all over the world along with special care packages for veterans and children in military families.
Each package contains a handwritten ‘thank-you-for-your-service’ letter along with useful items (Emergen-C, foot powder, tooth brush kits, sun block, socks, music CDs, candy, etc.) donated by major corporations to give the men and women serving our country a taste of home and to let them know how grateful we are for their service and how much we love them.
Additionally, for the milestone number packages, a Jeep from Chrysler was donated, two Harley Sportsters were donated by Sands Resorts and American Veterans Traveling Tributes (AVTT), an “8-Ball” was donated by Polaris Victory and an Orange County Chopper signed by Paul Senior was donated by Torque Sports –a well-known MMA clothing supplier and so on…
Along with my wife, Debbie, aka Wings2Fly, we also own two businesses – a motorcycle film & event company, South Bay Biker Productions and an artificial turf company, National Turf Supply. Each of our businesses qualified to be corporate sponsors of “OPGrat.” ‘Cause we donated a lot of cool stuff for the care packages including biker DVD’s, biker T-shirts, biker schwag and a bunch of flags with OPGrat’s logo -hand held and 3X5’s which can be purchased directly from OPGrat to help fund the non-stop package mailing expenses – $15 a box!
Bill Hayes and Jennifer Thomas are close friends and when I told them about Operation Gratitude’s mission Bill immediately asked if he could come out to cover a packaging day at OPGrat’s headquarters at the Van Nuys National Guard Armory for Thunder Press. Over the years Bill and Jennifer have made several return trips to the Armory and they’ve published several articles on this fine organization’s mission in Thunder Press. This world famous biker couple have also included information on OPGrat’s mission in Bill’s books on biker culture. So, along the way, they’ve helped spread the good word, biker style, of what OPGrat is all about. Yep, that’s how we do it, but Bikernet readers know this – which brings me to what happened this past Tuesday and why I’m writing this PR at the crack of dawn.
Over the past seven years, Keith Ball of Bikernet has also been an unswerving supporter of Operation Gratitude and our film and event company. Any time I sent Keith a PR on OPGrat he has always been lickety-split to agree to run the article on Bikernet’s website – no questions asked.
To recognize Bill & Jennifer’s and Keith’s contributions publicizing Operation Gratitude to the biker community over the past seven years I traveled to Bikernet headquarters this past Tuesday morning to present these motorcycle people with ‘Thank you’ cards from Operation Gratitude’s founder, Mrs. Carolyn Blashek (very busy lady!), and 3X5’ Operation Gratitude flags. On hand to document the presentation were Pete Alva, the director and producer of “The Biker Movie” and Henry “Photoshooter” Aparicio. (These talented men always appear when there’s a significant event in the biker community that needs to be documented.)
Also on hand for the presentation was Ray C. Wheeler, a Vietnam veteran, and Bikernet Performance Editor, and a member of 5-Ball Racing. Ray is a disabled Vet and is also a supporter of Operation Gratitude. Ray & I are also discussing how to get a lot more military veteran bikers involved in helping OPGrat.
One final note with the recent tragic and diabolical events that took place in Waco I feel it is important to note that the biker community is the largest, most generous, patriotic, and freedom loving group in America. Many bikers like Keith & Ray are veterans. Along with Bill Hayes and Jennifer Thomas these folks are just a few examples from the biker community of our generosity, charitable action, and patriotism.
-Jeff Kraus, aka, EzJ
Operation Gratitude Motorcycle Liaison & corporate sponsor
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