 Mama showed me pictures of their way. I believe Darryl Macken would be an amazing, honorary recipient of the Wesley Mortgage Community Hero Award. I met Darryl Macken in 2015 when I joined a Soldiers Child Foundation after the loss of my military husband. My four children have received birthday presents in the mail each year since their daddy's death. We have also enjoyed going to the fun camps where we go long-lasting friendships with other amazing kids just like that. And now we'll be able to receive secondary and college scholarships. Darryl's Foundation now serves close to 5,000 children across the United States who have lost a military parent. Our lives and so many others' lives have been completely changed because of Darryl's choice to say yes to this calling. We have been given hope to live out a courageous future, honor, and love from Darryl and his outstanding organization, Soldiers Child Foundation. What are you doing, dude? Well, I was just scrolling down Facebook and saw something on there. We said, we're looking for community heroes and I immediately responded with your name and an organization and about a week later I started getting phone calls from this Titans organization and man, it happened fast. Tell me what's Darryl like? He's amazing. He's definitely like a father figure to us. We love his family. We love his wife, his kids. I met him on my 13th birthday. So he threw us a party. My sister and I, we both have February birthdays and he's just kind of always been there for us. It's really brought a lot of healing just like seeing that there's other people out there that are experiencing what we are experiencing and that they can also relate and they can help us get through it. Darryl first started his organization after his neighbor lost his son. He was about a month out from his return and that's when they got the news that he had died and Darryl was there and supporting his friend and finally his friend in frustration and in grief. He said to Darryl, Did it matter and does anybody care? And those two questions struck Darryl really hard and he didn't go home that night. He ended up walking the neighborhood. And then as I was prepping for my own son's sixth birthday I caught an attitude of all the work that went into it and then I found myself staring at that image of the boy receiving his father's flag and then I realized that what I get to give my son there are so many children that will never get that from their father and I still get to give that gift. But this letter is the reason why I do what I do. Nothing else matters to me than this sentiment that we celebrate the children and they feel celebrated. We honor our fallen and the surviving tells us that we do and then we give the children a hope to live out a courageous life and they are. That's it.