Many of you are familiar with Soldiers Angels, a great non-profit organization that does amazing work for our military. They’re branched out into yet another great program called Cooking with the Wounded:

It all began with one person working with Soldiers’ Angels to cook a steak dinner for the wounded at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Now it has grown into something more. Cooking with the Wounded is not just about cooking food for our troops, it is about cooking with them and even helping wounded veterans move into a new career!

There are several phases for this project, which will ultimately culminate into a mentoring program for wounded soldiers interested in becoming chefs or open their own food businesses. They had a “practice” event at Walter Reed last November, but the big show will be at Landstuhl. And to help make this happen, Laughing Wolf is having a little contest to raise some funds.

The ladies of the Yellow Bowl Bakery in Lafayette, Indiana — seen here at their “practice” event last November at Walter Reed — will be the first team of chefs to travel to Landstuhl for the program. I can also say that other chefs have stepped forward with interest, including some you may know… While those discussions are underway, more can’t be said, but there is interest and appreciation for the effort. Now, we need to raise some money to help make it happen.

To help that effort, I have an offer for you. The individual donor who makes the largest donation by close-of-business next Tuesday (19 January 2010) will get one of the autographed photos from Phyllis Diller. The company that makes the largest donation by then will get one as well. One lucky person will be chosen to get a Christmas card sent to me by Ted Nugent in response to the Cooking with the Wounded program.

Times are tight right now as we all know. The economy is not great and a lot of us are struggling. But if you could dig deep to donate a little, even if its only $5, it would be so appreciated. The men and women in our military sacrifice so much for us, and the wounded warriors that will benefit from this project deserve our support and gratitude.

Anything you can do to help, no matter how small, can go a long way. Please show your thanks to our troops by helping out this great organization.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!