Happy New Year and January Updates

Happy New Year! We want to wish our supporters and families a wonderful new year. We also hope our spouses will take advantage of our upcoming virtual workshops. We are thrilled to work with our friends again from Bank of America's Better Money Habits Team and discuss tips and strategies to Deal with Debt. Additionally, we have our own certified Coach Susan Hannifin-MacNab to share her professional and personal insight on Parenting After Loss. Both of these workshops are focused on helping our families get their questions answered and addressing personal challenges. We look forward to presenting these sessions and are working on future events. If you are not able to attend either workshop you can view the recordings. We also encourage our spouses to reach out and make an appointment with our Financial/Resource Counselor or look into our partnership with Hiring Our Heroes. Make this your year to start a new path and embrace all of the opportunities available to you. 

For our supporters, we could not run any of our programs, provide workshops, or our events without your help. As such we would like to thank our friends from the Patriot Military Family Foundation for their assistance with our North Carolina families and recent grant.  We are always open to suggestions regarding support and appreciate any and all help. We are looking for Mentors to work with our Gold Star/Surviving Students who are currently enrolled in college or trade school. Your time can make a real impact! 

Our Team is constantly working to provide specific tangible support for our families. We base our programs, events, and opportunities around the support that will best help spouses and children create a new stable path after enduring the loss of their service member. As such, we invite our Registered spouses to complete our latest survey. If you are not registered please get in touch with our Admin@thesugarbearfoundation.org.

For our spouses and friends who would like information on any of our programs, support, or mentoring please contact Admin@thesugarbearfoundation.org. 

To our families, we are here for you always! To our supporters thank you for helping us not only sustain our programs but also continue to grow and give back in Sugar Bear's honor. 

Thank you,

Jennifer Carazo 
Gold Star wife/President 

Happy Holidays

As the holiday season flies by I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and New Year! To our friends and supporters thank you for helping us continue to sustain and grow our mission. For our Surviving Spouses and their children, we continue to work on your behalf. So be on the lookout for more workshops, in-person events (on both coasts), expanding our programs and opportunities in the coming year. I recently had the opportunity to attend the RF-LAMBDA Holiday Open House in San Diego. This yearly event is always a fun and festive gathering. It is a nice way for us to visit with families but to also give them an afternoon of joy and comradery. This year we had a few surprises with Santa and his special elf attending, which was a real treat! Thank you RF-LAMBDA for all you do to provide this event and support throughout the year. We are grateful! 

I invite you to continue reading and check out our latest News. As always we hope you will reach out if you have any ideas or would like to provide support. We receive requests daily from our families. Many spouses have been inquiring about internships and professional mentoring for their children (in college). If you, your business, or your company would be able to provide such assistance please contact our Admin@thesugarbearfoundation.org and let us know. 

Again, I want to wish everyone a blessed holiday season. 

Thank you,

Jennifer Carazo
President/Gold Star wife 

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful kickoff to the holiday season! I hope you will consider the Sugar Bear Foundation this Giving Tuesday. I feel blessed that we have continued to grow this past year with not only the number of spouses and children we have served throughout the United States, but have also been able to expand our programs. Additionally, we have provided more workshop offerings and have many more planned for the coming year as well as in-person events. 

Our mission continues to focus on providing our spouses and children with support through career, educational, financial, and wellness initiatives. In doing so we offer them a stable path after enduring the loss of their spouse or parent. I personally know these families need these opportunities after giving their all. So often we are told by our spouses they know there are resources out there for our community but they do not know where to look nor have the time with all they are managing. As such, we work daily to remove those barriers and provide solutions. But we need help!

Whether you donate or help spread the word about our work we cannot do this alone. As a thank you, for a limited time, anyone donating $30 or more can receive a Sugar Bear t-shirt! When donating please make sure to list the size (in the notes section) and or whether you are donating for our Annual  Holiday Gift Card Campaign. Please know it all helps and we are very grateful! I hope you enjoy reading about our latest News & Events as well as a wonderful start to the holiday season.

Thank you,

Jennifer Carazo
Gold Star wife and President

More Good News to Share!

We continue to have great news and opportunities for our families and could not resist the chance to share! Our Team is grateful to so many for the support we receive. We could not do any of this without them.

A big thank you to ViaSat for their recent fundraiser. Not only was it a fun event but the funds raised will make a real impact on our programs and the families we serve. We are also incredibly grateful to our Educational Sponsor, RF-LAMBDA for their ongoing support of our mission and the educational programs they help us provide. They have truly become family to us and work collaboratively to help us make the most impact.

We hope our spouses and teens in San Diego will join us this coming Sunday the 16th for our College Planning Workshop which is sponsored by RF-LAMBDA. Not only will we have great information pertaining to the college application process, benefits, and private scholarships but also how our programs can support both spouses and teens during the application period. Our families who are not in the area can join us remotely.

Also taking place in San Diego is our upcoming Meet and Greet where spouses can learn about our many programs and meet some of our Team. Thank you to our friends at Dunkin as this is going to be a sweet event!

We have more events and opportunities in San Diego… Please save the date for this year's RF-LAMBDA Holiday Open House on Sunday, December 11th. We promise it will not disappoint! Thank you, RF-LAMBDA for ALL that you do. Come join us for a fun night and fundraiser at the Bellyup Tavern next month. A portion of the proceeds made at this event will go towards our work.

I am personally so grateful for everything and truly feel blessed to work in this role. As such we are able to continue Sugar Bear's legacy of service while giving back to the spouses and children who have given their all. For my fellow spouses, please be on the lookout for more events and sources of support. Our Team continues to work daily to not only sustain but expand our current services and programs for our families throughout the United States and there is a lot coming your way. As always, if you would like to get involved with our mission, help us fundraise, or have an idea please reach out to our Admin@theSugarBearFoundation.org.

Thank you,

Jennifer Carazo

Gold Star wife and President