Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Welcome to Tonka Talk, the podcast that explores community and connection around Lake Minnetonka.
Nestled near the serene shores of Lake Minnetonka in the Twin Cities, our show is your guide to discovering the inspiring stories of individuals and groups who are crafting vibrant, meaningful community and connection in this picturesque setting.
From lakeside gatherings to community events, from stories of local heroes to heartwarming tales of collaboration, we dive into the ways people are coming together to create a strong sense of belonging.
Whether you're a longtime resident, a newcomer to the area, or simply interested in the power of community, Tonka Talk has something for you.
Do you know of someone creating community and connection in a unique or big way? Share it with us. We would love to hear from you.
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Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Molly Ambrose's Journey from Military Mom to Beacon of Hope for Service Members
When Molly Ambrose's son donned the Marine Corps uniform, it wasn't just a personal milestone—it sparked a movement that has since wrapped our heroes in the warmth of community care, called Semper Fi Flo.
Join me, Natalie Webster, on Tonka Talk as I sit down with the remarkable Molly, founder of Semper Fi Flow, and unravel the story of how what began as a heartfelt care package initiative has grown into a beacon of hope, sending comfort and a slice of home to service personnel across the seas.
Molly's dedication is a powerful reminder of the impact a single determined spirit can have. Tune in and be inspired by a story of steadfast support and the community ties that bind us all in gratitude to our troops.
Learn more and connect with Molly and Semper Fi Flo at www.semperfiflo.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SemperFiFlo111
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Hello everyone and welcome to Tonka Talk. I'm Natalie Webster. We talk about the ways people create community and connection, here and today, my guest is Molly Ambrose and she is a mom on a mission to help military personnel. Welcome, molly. Well, thank you, I'm honored to be here. I was very excited to learn about what you were doing. We met each other through the social, the social media Facebook, yes, and we live in the same community. Now you have a nonprofit. The nonprofit is called Semper Fi, flow, correct, which tell me what that means.
Speaker 2:Semper Fi is always faithful in the Marine Corps. And then Flow is short for Florence Nightingale. Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love it. You have this nonprofit where you put together care packages for military personnel, but how did you get started doing this?
Speaker 2:I attended a Minnesota Marine Mom meeting after my son enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2015. And some of the moms were going to get together and put together care packages with pillows in them, and they wanted to buy king-size pillows with king-size pillowcases and cut them. And I'm like I don't. It sounds like a lot of work. Yeah, I don't have the money, nor do I know how to sew. Maybe there's a quicker way, yep. So I asked if anyone had ever called my pillow. Yeah, they all looked at me like I was crazy. This was a.
Speaker 2:Saturday morning and by Monday I had 50 my pillows in my basement. Wow, that's amazing. So I was on to something Sure. So the Marine Moms and I ended up doing a care package event. We packaged care packages for our sons and daughters and some of us have kids in the Army also, so they or Navy so they did a couple boxes and they shipped them out. And then our daughter ended up doing it for her capstone project at Chanhassen High School and she shipped 336 care packages. Wow, that I think it was 2016. She did that and my pillow supplied all the pillows and paid for all the shipping. Yeah Said we were on to something. Yeah, following fall, we got the schools to give us Halloween candy. Love Creek Elementary, victoria Elementary.
Speaker 1:And the candy. Tell me about the candy, because I know these were one of the things. I was a little well not surprised, but I found very interesting what it there's, because where a lot of these military personnel are, they're not getting candy. No, they don't get candy?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when we, when we do a care package, you have a coloring book, coloring crayons, pads of paper pens, a handheld game, a little trinket for the holidays yeah, Toiletry bag, snack bag. Then they have Halloween candy and we separate it into the sweet candy versus the chocolate in case the chocolate melts. But when we get thank yous in them, there's a MyPillow in the box and then when we get thank yous back, the number one thing is the MyPillow. The number two thing is candy that actually is brand named candy, like Hershey's, and that yeah, yeah, that's really what they want Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Now your son went into the Marines and this was kind of like your son's in the military and you're looking for a way to can do something with that nervous energy that a mom gets with a child in the military.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So we did care packages, and then I decided to go to Chan High School and ask them if they had a wall for the military kids. Yeah, when they, you know you have a wall saying where all of the kids are going to college. Well, where's the military wall for the kids that have been listed, that they didn't have one.
Speaker 2:They didn't have one. So I kind of lost my craziness, lost your mind, yeah. And they walked me down to the media center and the media lady in the Chan High School Library pushed over a business card and told me to call this gentleman and said Colonel Bob Ayotte, he's out of Chanhassen. Every time I tried calling him I had to hang up because I could not get. Thank you for your service. I could not say my son is a Marine without crying.
Speaker 2:For the first six months. I finally saw his wife's name on a military page. I'm on. I asked her in a private message or related to Colonel Bob Ayotte, and she replied why? What did he do? So? I knew I was going to love her right there. I ended up connecting with Bob. I told him what I do. He ended up telling me he had a veteran family in need, which led to another veteran family in need. After a half an hour I committed to adopting six veterans that were in need that he knew of. Wow, we added three Marine families onto that. So the first year I was shipping out care packages and now I've committed to adopting military families from Minnesota that have hit a bump in the road.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's such a great way to be able to when you think about, too, if people in the military are overseas and if their family or some of their family is home struggling, how heartwarming for them to know that they're being taken care of while they're gone. What are some of the responses that you get from the military personnel when they receive these care packages, you told me, like the candy, they get very excited about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the care packages alone are a huge morale booster. Yeah, I've had a lot. Quite a few military personnel reach out to me and say hey, molly, we need a little bit of a boost. Could you possibly ship out care packages? And when we do that, then we will either ship out individual care packages to the military personnel or we'll ship out community packages, meaning one box has all shampoo and conditioners, another box has all snacks, another box has razors, anything that they are in need of, sure, and then we supply those.
Speaker 1:Wow. We're going to share all of the ways that you can get a hold of Molly and that you can contribute as well, because there are so many different items that when you do these drives that you're looking for that are needed, and again, we'll put a link to all of this so you can kind of do a deep dive on it and find out how you can help. What are some of the items? Are there some more than others that you and I should also say financial donations completely accepted as well, and we're going to share a link for that. That is absolutely huge. But what are some of the items that you collect that people might be kind of surprised by? That you're actually looking for and need for these care packages?
Speaker 2:Hand warmers, so like there's some general and some personnel that are in really cold temperatures. If we can get the hand and the foot warmers. They are really into gold bond foot powder because they're using their boots. Their boots get wet, their socks are wet, they end up with blisters band aids another thing. But they really love food. Yeah, yeah, the food. Imagine Like little boxes of macaroni and cheese ramen noodles.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because some of them. When our son was deployed, he was on the USSS six for nine months and the food got a little old, so we would ship him items to make like mac and cheese and ramen noodles. Sure, it was a hit, because they didn't have that. No, no, no, no Chicken.
Speaker 1:Wow, and these are items too that you can find at Costco or Sam's Club or other big box stores to get in bulk.
Speaker 2:Yep, and we have an Amazon wish list. Okay, so I put together every year at Amazon wish list the what we're going to send, that at the holidays we do a big care package kickoff. So this year we just shipped out 400 care packages about three weeks ago. It's about $80 to $100 of contents in the per care package and it costs $22 a box to ship Wow, which, again, is why financial donations are so important.
Speaker 1:Now you want to take this show on the road.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You want to be able to reach more people and to be able to get more support, but also be so that you can do more of these packages, so you can show more support towards our military personnel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we do quite a few things. We adopt military families at the holidays that are vetted through their veteran service officer or the readiness officers, and then they reach out to me and we adopt them. They are posted on my Facebook anonymously with a wish list from the family Multiple people can adopt a family and then I get them in contact so they're not repeating gifts and if they do, that's fine. And then we do the care packages and then we also adopt the veteran homes and we do other missions along the way through the year. The 400 care packages we just shipped out went all over the world.
Speaker 2:So when our son was out there, when he came back from being deployed, we went out to Camp Pendleton where he came back to, and they were dropped off at New Barracks. Well, he was left with what he had on his back and what he was carrying for nine months. He went into the New Barracks. There's nothing in there. There's no bedding, there's no towels, there's nothing. We would like to drive out in a sprinter van and have a collapsible laundry basket with laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, snacks, towels and sheets, just to get these guys through the first couple of days when they get back from deployment.
Speaker 2:I understand their military. They're supposed to struggle a little bit, but you know what? There's a need out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because when they come back their stuff is either back at home in a different state or it's across base in a storage unit or it's off base and now they got to go collect all their items to put back. So we just thought maybe it'd be easy to get about 250 of each item and take them out to the guys and gals that come back.
Speaker 1:That's such a great idea because if you think about, even when people you know when you're moving you have all your stuff, you're in the middle. In fact, my sister just moved back to Hawaii and sent all of her stuff on a ship and isn't going to get it for weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so wouldn't it be nice Someone show up with the laundry basket?
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be able to have those things and to be I think, about the military personnel in terms of being away from their family, and I mean talk about moving and being uprooted and so much change and having a care package, having these things there.
Speaker 1:It sounds like such a small thing, but from what you're saying it sounds like the impact is humongous. And what I love about what you're doing with your nonprofit, which again is called Semper 5 Flow and we're going to share in the show links where you can donate items, where you can donate financially and learn more about what she's doing with her nonprofit, how you can it's all about right who you know, what you want to get going. Your idea of kind of going across the country with the Sprinter Van I absolutely love that idea, but you know they need donations and if you guys out there know anyone who's got a connection to a Sprinter Van company, you know, be it Mercedes, ford, whatever that would love to sponsor this type of organization and this mom's mission, because I think she's going to be hell on wheels.
Speaker 2:We put about 12,000 miles a year for Semper 5 Flow on our personal vehicles and we have done this for the last eight years and she was unenlisted. So we decided after this that there's a need for our logistics because we are now going out to schools, to the Hazelton Foundation for one of their events and we're doing care packages and like snack bags and toiletry bags and we need to transport all this stuff back and forth yeah, where we're using up to four SUV vehicles to transport things back and forth.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a lot. Avan would make a really big difference.
Speaker 2:It would be huge. It would be huge, it would be a really big difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what else are some of the items that people can donate? That would really help.
Speaker 2:We have pages on our Facebook page of what we collect. Toiletries are huge, like shampoos, conditioner soaps, razors. Luffa sponges are big. Oh, wow See, I wouldn't have thought of that one. Yeah, absolutely, luffa sponges, peanuts, snacks, candy, hard candy, jolly ranchers are big, wow Again. The gold bond salt powder is huge. Band-aids Anything you think that you might need when you where you can't get it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Beef jerky, huge Wow, mm-hmm, love jacklinks. Yeah, general Mills donates to us. They give us all of our granola bars for the care packages. Sure, mystic Lake gives us playing cards for the care packages.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So we do. You know, we would love if companies have anything that they would like to donate, to put into our care packages or to donate to any of our families or to the veteran home. That would be fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yes, Having those corporate sponsors where they can bring you not just 10 granola bars which even 10 granola bars is appreciated Absolutely but to bring you thousands of it. So again, if you're listening to this and you have a connection or you work for a company that creates different food items or products, maybe there's a way that you can connect with Molly and get some of those to go into the care packages for the military personnel. What is your son doing now?
Speaker 2:Right now he's working in Human Resources. He finished his eight-year contract this past July. Wow, he was looking into law enforcement. Not sure if he's going to go that route or not. Sure, but he's enjoying his time out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what does he think about you doing all of this?
Speaker 2:When he went in, all he said was Mom, let me do my four years, you don't need to get involved, you don't need to do anything, you don't need to make friends, Just let me get through my four years. And I did not listen. I drank the water by gulping it huge, and he's really proud of me, he's really proud of what I've done, and it's all because of what he did. It was a shock to us when he was going in. We were not a military family. We had four kids in five years. They're all best friends. And he came home one day and said I think I'm enlisting in the Marine Corps and we're like, no, what are you doing? And then he had a recruiter come over, chatted with us. He went away to a mini boot camp for a weekend when he was a junior in high school.
Speaker 1:Wow, I did not know that that was a thing, yeah, but a camp for a plate. So you could go kind of for a week and get a taste when you're in high school.
Speaker 2:And then he decided no, that is not for me, these guys are crazy. And then he graduated high school when a year over at Normandale, and then decided one day, I think I'm going to enlist, and he enlisted.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting that he kind of did a 180 on that and then ended up serving for was it eight years?
Speaker 2:It's an eight-year contract with the Marine Corps. And it's four years active, four-year call-up. So he has to do the four years and then he can come home, go back in the civilian world, kind of get a job and stuff. But if the military needed him they could call him back up Wow, but he's done, so they can't know, wow.
Speaker 1:So the next step kind of what you're doing with Simper Fi Flow is it just sounds like you're really kind of scaling up and rallying the troops to get more support to do what you're doing but be able to do it on a bigger level. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And we take care of. We're a Minnesota non-profit 501c3. We became that in 2019. We found that very important because then people, charities, can donate to us also. We take care of Minnesota-based troops and we take care of Minnesota families that have hit a little bit of a speed bump in the road during the holidays. We take care of the Minnesota veteran homes. Eventually in the future, I would like to maybe branch out to Wisconsin, iowa, the Dakotas, yeah, but right now we're Minnesota. To date, we have helped over 109 Minnesota military families.
Speaker 2:Wow, we've shipped over 5,500 care packages. We have adopted all five veteran homes and we're on the second rotation of those. Wow. What are some of the needs?
Speaker 1:for the veterans homes.
Speaker 2:The veteran homes. Well, this year we did. There are 57 residents up in Silver Bay, minnesota, so we got them each a flannel shirt, a sweatshirt or a jacket, which is a jacket, sweatshirt, pajamas and a sherpa blanket, so every resident will get one of those in a bag they get to open. It's all wrapped. They redid, they remodeled their kitchen, so we got a wish list from them. We put it on on Facebook. Whoever didn't, whatever wasn't donated, we went with donations and purchased everything like an espresso maker, a coffee maker, dishes, utensils, anything that they needed, cutting boards that they needed, wow.
Speaker 1:That is absolutely amazing. In the show notes, we are going to share all the ways that you can reach Molly and connect with her, and just whether it's donations straight donations or financial donations. I would love to see the Sprinter Van become a reality and see what else that you can do. You've been doing this for how long now we started in 2016.
Speaker 2:Nick went in in June of 2015, July, excuse me, of 2015. And then I attended a meeting, a Minnesota Marine Moms meeting, and then it just kicked off. So basically we say we started in 2016.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. That's fantastic. We are going to share all the ways that you can reach her. Definitely, reach out and connect. She's obviously a force.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a huge mission. We call them missions. We have a huge mission coming up in February for Girl Scout Cookie Donation. So last February this past year we got 1,500 individual Girl Scout Cookie Boxes donated to us and then we spun those out into care packages. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Those will be shipped out the beginning of April and then we're just going to kind of continue to do stuff throughout the year Different missions we did back when George Floyd happened. The National Guard was brought into Minneapolis. They didn't have underwear, socks, towels, so we swooped in and bought 150 pairs of socks, 150 pairs of underwear, 150 towels. And then General Mills came in and donated all the granola bars and then we put out a 911, basically on Facebook, and everyone started donating deodorants and everything that they needed because they were called upon so quickly. So we do quick missions like that also. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's so needed. It's so needed. We're definitely going to have to chat again, absolutely, and I want to hear about how things go with this, you know, especially if you get the van. So if anybody has a hookup, by all means reach out. Let's get this going, please. It's so wonderful to be able to share an update and maybe talk again later, especially when it gets close to Girl Scout Cookie season.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Let's get those cookies for the troops. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you, everybody else. I will talk to you later.
