I was fortunate to be invited out to New York City to attend an amazing event held at NASDAQ OMX. It was to support the charity Cooking with the Troops. NASDAQ and several organizations worked together on Friday to celebrate our troops, past and present.
The day started with a surprise marriage proposal. A young wounded warrior who is on the way to recovery got down on one knee in Times Square and asked his girl to marry him. It was on Fox and Friends if you were watching that morning.
Cooking with the Troops then provided them a beautiful private breakfast in the NASDAQ OMX building. CEO Blake Powers and chef Ellen Adams from A Red Hot Dish cooked for the young couple.
After all of that, the opening bell ceremony was the start to the business day. The American Legion, Sears’ Heroes at Home, and Josh Gracin all got things off to a great start.
Shortly thereafter, the chefs started the cooking demonstrations. You would not believe the yummy smells. In addition to invited guests, there were passes handed out to anyone in uniform down in Times Square. They were welcome to watch the demos, taste samples, and attend the luncheon. It was wonderful to see that CwtT made sure that even strangers on the street were welcomed and brought in to be fed and fêted.
At this point, I sort of cut out because another event was going on. Mark Dolfini with Standing for the Fallen needed a hand collecting donations for Soldiers Angels, so I stood in Times Square with him for close to 4 hours. But I did pop back in a few times to warm up and see how things were going. I could tell lots of military members had accepted and used the passes to get some food and meet the wonderful folks in the dining room. CwtT as a group are so welcoming and they make your stomach growl with the food they dish up! I did have a fortuitous meet-up with our old Youserved friends, Michael Cuomo and K. Lorrel Manning from the film Happy New Year. That totally warmed my heart because I adore those guys!
At the end of the day, we gathered in the studio to do the special closing bell ceremony. CwtT was honored along with a few others and allowed to do the final bell. We were all allowed on stage to shout and cheer the end of an amazing day for everyone involved.
Charities like Cooking with the Troops need donations to keep running and to keep doing events like they do at BAMC, Landstuhl, and Walter Reed. They provide good food, opportunities like sending veterans to a culinary boot camp, and programs like Homefront Support where they teach military and families how to cook nutritious meals (more info about what they do can be found by watching this video). They are currently running a fundraiser that kicked off on Veteran’s Day and will run through Thanksgiving, coincidentally the biggest cooking day of the year for most of America. Please consider helping them keep all of this up and moving forward!!
