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America Supports You: Happy Notes Reach Troops From Minnesota
America Supports You ^ | Samantha L. Quigley

Posted on 08/01/2008 4:07:41 PM PDT by SandRat

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2008 – Letters a Minnesota couple has received thanking them for musical instruments they’ve sent to deployed troops show that just a simple note can change the atmosphere in the desert.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
Steve and Barb Baker, founders of Operation Happy Note, pose with a guitar that members of the 3rd Infantry Division signed and sent them after learning about Steve's wish to go to Iraq and hand out guitars. Operation Happy Note supplies deployed servicemembers with musical instruments. Photo courtesy of Operation Happy Note
  

(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
“The purpose of these … instruments is to relieve stress and raise morale,” said Barb Baker, one of the founders of Operation Happy Note. “According to the letters we receive, music is a great stress reliever.”

Operation Happy Note sends free musical instruments to deployed servicemembers wherever they’re stationed.

Baker and her husband, Steve, owners of Fergus Music in Fergus, Minn., unwittingly started Operation Happy Note in March 2005 when they sent her son a guitar for his birthday. He was serving overseas with 134th Signal Battalion at the time.

“He had a buddy who saw it and wanted one, and then another buddy,” Baker said. “It was decided [we would] hold a fundraiser so we could send more guitars to his unit, and we just never quit.”

The organization kept right on growing and garnered national attention with mentions in national news programs and periodicals. To date, the organization has sent more than 2,500 instruments to servicemembers, including guitars, mandolins, banjos, violins, horns and harmonicas. Anything that makes music is fair game; Steve Baker even wrote a lesson program that includes a CD for those who don’t know how to play an instrument.

More than 1,300 troops are on the waiting list for instruments. The organization has a large inventory of instruments, but it lacks the funds to ship them.

“It costs an average of $15 to $30 to ship an instrument,” Baker said. “Our last inventory shows that it would take $34,000 to send the instruments we have on hand.”

Operation Happy Note is a new supporter of America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad.
Related Sites:
Operation Happy Note
America Supports You


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: happy; minnesota; notes; troops

1 posted on 08/01/2008 4:07:42 PM PDT by SandRat
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To: SandRat; MplsSteve

SandRat, thank you for keeping us abreast of all things having to do with the troops.

Steve, unleash the ping.


2 posted on 08/01/2008 4:17:49 PM PDT by definitelynotaliberal
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To: definitelynotaliberal

My pleasure.


3 posted on 08/01/2008 4:20:48 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country! What else needs said?)
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To: NorthWoody; Manic_Episode; mikethevike; coder2; AmericanChef; Reaganesque; ER Doc; lesser_satan; ...

WELCOME TO FREE REPUBLIC’S MINNESOTA PING LIST!

100 MEMBERS AND GROWING...!

FREEPMAIL ME IF YOU WANT ON OR OFF THIS LIST!


4 posted on 08/01/2008 8:18:27 PM PDT by MplsSteve
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To: MplsSteve

Hi MplsSteve,

Would you please add me to your ping list?

Thank you Sir


5 posted on 08/05/2008 5:54:28 AM PDT by MinnesotaGuy
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