VFW Auxiliary Continues Veteran’s Christmas Card Mission
Members of the VFW Post 7721 auxiliary are keeping a late veteran’s mission intact of bringing Christmas cheer to veterans across Florida and beyond.
Hours upon hours are spent in a back room at the VFW Post in Golden Gate putting a handwritten note, frequently enough penned by local students, into individual Christmas cards.
The cards are bundled with festive ribbon and boxed for shipping to more than 200 veterans’ hospitals, nursing homes and the like in ten states.
This year more than 16,000 cards are expected to be mailed Dec. 1. That’s the final step in the time consuming but heartfelt endeavor.
The ladies of the Auxiliary know the holiday often is not a joyous occasion for many veterans who are alone in the VA centers for one reason or another.
Auxiliary member Mimi Treadway promised her late daughter, Renee Whisner, an Air Force veteran, to keep her project going after she started it in 2020. Whisner died Christmas Day in 2023. She was 52.
In turn, it’s a promise the rest of the Auxiliary made to Treadway, many of whom knew her daughter and the tragic turn of events in her life.
In 2014 many years after service in the Air Force, Whisner was in a horrific car accident in India and left a quadriplegic. She eventually was moved to Naples to be with family.
The project, “mission: Operation Christmas Cards for Veterans,” was founded by Whisner, who was inspired after noticing fellow veterans received no cards while she was hospitalized.
## Local Auxiliary sends holiday cheer to veterans, honors Naples woman’s service
Behind-the-scenes work includes contacts with the Collier County School District, youth groups and the like to write messages to veterans on three-by-five notecards thanking them for their service. One hand-written notecard gets inserted into each Christmas card.
“It helps kids learn about patriotism and service,” Bailey said.
The Auxiliary doesn’t get veterans’ names from a VA center, instead it gets a bed count and always sends more so nobody is left out.
“They (the center) distribute them to the veteran’s rooms,” Bailey said.
## Whisner’s military service and accident
Whisner was born into a military family and raised in Ocheyedan, Iowa. The family moved to Sheldon, Iowa where she went to high school.
After graduating in 1990, she started college in Des Moines but joined the Air Force in 1992.
During Desert Storm, she was stationed in Spangdahlem Air Force Base in Germany and assigned to logistics.
One duty involved guarding pallets of rifles and other weaponry at night, Treadway recalled her daughter telling her.
After the Air Force,Whisner lived in Jacksonville and Washington State working in logistics jobs and raising her two kids,Treadway said.
She traveled to India with plans to become a master yoga instructor and meditation trainer.
When she had to deal with a visa requirement of leaving the country, she hired a driver to take her to the upper Himalayas. The driver was going too fast and hit a tree.
Whisner broke her neck and had a spinal cord injury that left her a quadriplegic at the age of 42. The accident happened Dec. 3, 2014. Treadway went to India and stayed with her for weeks.
“We had her medically brought home,” Treadway said.
Whisner was in a hospital in washington state for a while before the VA accepted her into their system in May 2015 and she was sent to the James A.Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa.
That’s where she spent a year in the ventilator unit and eventually was fitted with a whee