Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend just how powerful and giving our army of Angel volunteers is. At any given moment, thousands of activities are happening across the world – all in support of Service Members, Veterans, and their families. Recently, our Angels had the opportunity to work together in support of one BIG effort for Thanksgiving.

Every year, Fort Leonard Wood hosts a Thanksgiving Day celebration for Service Members stationed there, as well as Department of Defense ID cardholders, Gold Star families, retirees, and their families. The massive Thanksgiving celebration usually feeds over 40,000 people within the Military-connected community. They lovingly call it the “Superbowl of Food Service.”

“Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated with family and friends, and for every Service Member training here on Fort Leonard Wood, their table will look different — the faces will be different — but the warmth felt will remain the same.” Beverly Leggett, Installation Food Program manager, said in an interview about the event.

This year, Tina Beck at Fort Leonard Wood reached out to Soldiers’ Angels to add another layer to the day: thank you cards for the Service Members. We were so excited to help out and put out the call for support. Our Angels were on it. They were able to collectively produce 4,200 thank you cards! The cards were handed out to Service Members in attendance and were very well received.

“All year long, every year, I look for ideas on how to find new ways to make Thanksgiving feel special for the trainees who are in basic training. I decided to post some pictures on a Facebook charcuterie page for help. It had an overwhelming response, and one of those responses was from a woman named Jen Fields. She was more than helpful and said she would reach out to an organization called Soldiers’ Angels and ask if they could send greeting cards to our soldiers in training.

Before I knew it greeting cards started rolling in. They kept coming until one week before Thanksgiving. We were able to collect over 4,200 greeting cards. The facility I work at on Thanksgiving fed over 1,100 trainees. The surplus of cards was given to other facilities that were also feeding trainees. As for those facilities, I am not sure how they were handed out, but I can tell you at my facility, we had an employee stationed at each entryway handing out and ensuring that every trainee received a greeting card. The following day I followed up with some of the drill sergeants and they all agreed it was a wonderful idea. They would like to see it happen every year.

It was a wonderful project to watch unfold. To be able to see so many selfless people take time out to handwrite all these greeting cards was amazing. I am truly grateful I was able to be a part of it. Soldiers’ Angels is an amazing organization and did so much for our Trainees.” – Tina Beck

What a powerful way to celebrate Thanksgiving – by thanking those who serve. It just goes to show what we can do when we join forces for good. Great job, Angels!

Want to join our Angel Army and support initiatives like this? Get started as a volunteer here.

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