Tailgaters,
We had a great time at the Temple VA campus on October 12th! The VA staff up there came through as usual with the Fort Cavazos Jazz Band (they were great!), a DJ, a raffle, over 40 veterans outreach groups and other stuff - if you weren't there you missed out. The weather was great, but maybe a bit warm - we will take that versus wet and cold - and we were able to set up next to the lake and outdoor pavilion on their campus. It was a great setting and a great day. Here is the wrap up:
1. We served around 500 lunch meals in total - maybe a little bit more than that. The food ran out pretty quickly and we didn't bring any food home. The fish fry ran out first, then the chicken fajitas and then the grilled chicken thighs and sausage. It was all good. I want to give a big shout out to our cookers-
- Mark Morales and his Texans Tailgate Response Unit who served the fish fry and who all made the round trip that day from Houston to cook in Temple. The fish meal was excellent. Mark your secret on the batter is safe with me.
- Roger Koehler, Martin Bayang and their RAF (does not stand for Royal Air Force) crew who served the chicken fajita meal and also made the long round trip from and back to Houston that day. We saw some familiar faces from St. Timothy's Anglican Church in Spring in their crew.
- Ben and Teri Weibel, Carlton and Jill Berry, and Dan Wingerson (the Tailgate OG's) who cooked the grilled chicken thighs and sausage meal. We also picked up some help from a local Girl Scout and her parents who were a big help - I didn't get their names but they worked hard like the whole OG crew.
So thank you cookers for making the long trip to Temple - we needed all of you!
2. We spent a total of $1,451 (I'm rounding up to the closest dollar - if that's good enough for the IRS it's good enough for me) on the 500 meals at Temple. This includes the clamshells, picnic packs, aluminum pans, foil etc. for all the meals. On the surface that would be $2.90 per meal but Mark Morales and his TTRU crew donated their entire meal so you can take 170 meals out of the equation. Plus Goya Foods donated all the beans and donated the rice for the chicken fajita meal plus olive oil and other seasonings. So maybe our out of pocket cost is more in the neighborhood of $4.25 per meal for 340 meals. Still not bad.
3. We started this season with $4,405 in the bank. We spent $844 for the minimum order of 72 TGWAH caps. We have had additional donations come in of $1,250 in the last couple of weeks and then we spent $1,451 on Temple. This leaves us with a current balance of $3,361. Yes I know if you do the math on these numbers it is a dollar off, but that has to be in the cents to the right of the decimal point that I am ignoring. Plus the actual balance is a dollar to the good.
4. I again want to give a huge THANK YOU to Esther and Patrick Flores and their company, Tax Tech for being a huge supporter of TGWAH and to Goya Foods who once again donated a lot of food for the Temple tailgate and who has already contacted me about donating food and goody bags for the veterans for our tailgate at Camp Hope on Saturday December 7th.
5. I also want to thank Mr. Carlton Berry (a TGWAH OG) who spent hours of his time rewiring the lights on the TGWAH cooking trailer - for the second time that I remember. Between Carlton and Ray Condron (aka Johnny Tailgate) they also donated the wiring, new lights and materials for the cooking trailer. Then Mr. Dan Wingerson donated his time and the expenses to get the trailer registration current.
6. Carlton also had a friend donate a primo stainless steel propane burner to TGWAH that Carlton got into ship shape (at his donated expense). The burner is unusually tall which is great so you don't have to bend way over to cook on it. If, like me, you are old enough to remember the Apollo missions to the moon, the burner looks like the lunar lander. It really does.
7. Our next event - we are scheduled to take a tailgate out to Camp Hope in Houston on Saturday December 7th. The plan is to serve 100 grilled steak and baked potato lunch meals to the residents and staff and ourselves (if we have enough) at Camp Hope. If you are able to make this tailgate we have plenty of "opportunities" available. If anyone has a contact for a good cut of steak at a good price please have at it or let me know who to contact. I will reach out to the folks who have helped us in the past. We want to make this a special meal at Camp Hope for the veterans there who have answered the call and sacrificed a lot for us. Camp Hope provides resident care for veterans dealing with combat related PTSD.
8. If we are still rolling and have funding and enough volunteers, we will plan to make a return trip to the Temple VA campus on Saturday October 11, 2025 in case you keep a long range calendar. It is getting harder to get the OG's to turn out as people are retiring and/or moving away or getting busy with other things or just ageing out. But I hope we can make a return trip to Temple next year. That has become our biggest and best organized event.
So thank you for all you do for TGWAH and we hope to see you at Camp Hope on December 7th.
Ralph Wissel