COLUMBIA - After nearly seven years of work, Marine Parents opened a new warehouse and office right here in mid-Missouri Saturday morning.
Marineparents.com started in 2003, looking to connect Marine parents nationwide and share their stories. It's an organization centered around support.
Now a few years later, the warehouse and office was filled with excitement and emotion.
It was a Marine mom's chance to send her love overseas and answers across the country.
As a first time Marine parent in 2003, executive director Tracy Della Vecchia had a lot of questions.
"My son was deploying to Iraq, and I couldn't find one place that had all the answers, so I went looking online," Della Vecchia said. "If I couldn't find it, I knew other parents couldn't find it, so I started collecting all the answers to my own questions."
Her answers have helped send more than 20,000 care packages overseas, more than 25,000 cards to injured servicemen, and more than 4,500 meals to Marine families.
"To receive packages over there is such an uplifting to the servicemen whether they're Marines, Army, Air Force, whatever. It's a great feeling to know that people are caring about us over there while we're defending the country," Joe McGrail who is a retired staff sergeant for the U.S. Marine Corps said.
After six years of support, they opened a new office and warehouse for Marineparents.
"Its just phenomenal when you look at the family spirit and what that means for families to come together and build a building for supporting the troops it's pretty incredible."
A national movement making an impact worldwide.
"When I see all the love and the families that come together to do something that I started it's pretty overwhelming emotionally and at the same time I'm filled with so much pride for the ability of these folks to come together and work like this," Della Vecchia said.
The next care package packing day is scheduled for January.