Families With Special Military Bond Don't Let Icy Roads Cancel Event

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PLANO (CBSDFW.COM) - With icy roads and freezing temperatures hundreds of events across the Dallas Fort Worth area were cancelled Saturday, but not the Snowball Express' pizza party in Plano.

Late Friday organizers called dozens of families who were scheduled to attend and asked if they wanted to cancel. They said no way. This was too important.

Every few months a group of families with the Snowball Express organization get together. Saturday it was a pizza party at the Pizza Hut corporate headquarters in Plano and then a private bus ride down to the Dallas Mavericks game.

But for these families the activity is not nearly as important as the company.

Every child with the Snowball Express group shares in the loss of having a parent killed while serving in the military.

Eleven-year-old Christopher Weatherford of Corinth said it's the one group where everyone fits in.

"At school they have this donuts for dads but the people that don't have dads can't go. It's sort of like you are being left out," he said. "But when you come here everyone has this one bond that brings everyone together."

The organization's director, Buck Kern, said, "For them getting together and reconnecting is a big deal. Part of the process of healing is to be able to talk –talk about their dad. Here they can do that."

And they weren't going to let a winter's storm stop them.

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