Baby! Happy Greenwich/Stamford Story

Wow. This is the nicest story I've heard in a long time. A soldier in Iraq got to see the birth of his baby boy at Greenwich Hospital via video conference. If I wasn't trying to get to work early today, I'd take a few minutes to cry my eyes out. The dad is actually from Stamford, and the video conference was courtesy a nonprofit called Freedom Calls Foundation.

From the Advocate article: Established in 2003, Morristown, N.J.'s Freedom Calls Foundation is a nonprofit organization that connects military families in the United States by video conference with their loved ones for milestones such as the birth of a child, graduations, weddings and parent-teacher conferences. It makes 2,000 calls, paid for with donations.

"We are able to meet a little bit better than 35 percent (of troops' requests) only because we don't have satellite centers on the ground in every military base in Iraq," [Director of Development Kathryn] Hudacek said. "But with every dollar donated, we're able to put more up."

Centers cost more than $150,000 to build and maintain annually. One hour of connection time costs $1,000. The service is free to military families.