This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
06/08/2016 08:30 AMAmanda Brackett is a member of the Killingworth Women’s Organization (KWO), for which she runs the Soldier Care project, sending care packages to local soldiers stationed overseas and providing support to their families. The group sent a dozen packages overseas last year and is looking for more local families to help.
“Two years ago, KWO teamed up with the Shoreline Women’s Group, who was sending out boxes. We knew they were going to soldiers that needed them, but we really didn’t know who they were,” Amanda says. “So when KWO started the Soldier Care project last year, it was more of a town-oriented thing. The intention was to send them to service members that were from our town, and we also wanted to send care packages to the support system for that service member—the local families waiting at home.”
Amanda knows firsthand how these families feel. Her own husband, James, was deployed overseas a few years ago for 400 days as an Army Reservist. He finished with the military a little more than a year ago and now works for Kaman Aerospace in Bloomfield, transporting helicopters all over the U.S.
The KWO and its Soldier Care project won an award last month from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Connecticut, Inc.
The KWO was founded in 2003. Meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month in the Killingworth Library Meeting Room. There is a social half hour starting at 6:30 p.m. and at 7 p.m. the business meeting begins. Any local woman is welcome and encouraged to stop by.
KWO will be participating in the upcoming Relay for Life of Haddam Killingworth taking place this weekend at Haddam-Killingworth High School. The grounds open at 3 p.m., with an opening ceremony at 6 p.m. Relay for Life is an organized, overnight community fundraising walk where teams camp out around a track and members of each team take turns walking around the track. Funds raised go to the American Cancer Society.
Amanda helps the community in her role as a business owner as well. She owns Southern Connecticut Wine Company in Wallingford with her business partner, Deana Morin. The winery has hosted fundraisers and benefits for, and donated to, a number of organizations, including HELO Haiti, the Connecticut Food Bank, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), and the Ron Foley Foundation for pancreatic cancer. HELO Haiti has three homes in Haiti, each housing adult caretakers and 12 to 15 orphaned and abandoned children.
“We do a fundraiser for them every fall,” Amanda says of HELO Haiti. “We respond to a lot of charities [who request funds].”
Amanda bought the winery in January 2015 from its previous owner, Frank Martone. She had started the winery with him in January 2012 after originally responding to his ad seeking a bookkeeper for an unnamed business. Once she learned Frank was hiring for a winery, she told him, “Hey, I know how to make wine!” and a partnership was born.
Amanda and James moved to Connecticut from California in January 2012 and married the following year. Amanda, who was born in Connecticut but grew up on the West Coast, says Killingworth is the perfect place for her family. Their son, JP, is 2 ½ and is a frequent visitor to the winery, as is the family’s rescue dog, Harry.
“We wanted our son to grow up climbing trees in the woods, getting grass stains on his knees, and being a kid,” she says.
In fact, she wants to move the winery to Killingworth.
“I ship in all of my grapes from a vineyard in California,” she points out, “so all I need is the space.”
For more info about the Killingworth Women’s Organization, visit www.kwoct.org.
To have a care package sent to a Killingworth soldier overseas, contact Amanda at 310-351-9586 or amanda@soconnwineco.com.