Fort Benning families take home 600 Christmas trees in Trees for Troops giveaway

Five-year old Arianna Lucas picked out her family’s Christmas tree from more than 600 trees at Wetherby Field on Tuesday. “I found a good one,” she told her father, Andrew Lucas.

FedEx Cares and the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation have delivered trees to Fort Benning for 13 years as part of the Trees for Troops giveaway. About 2,250 trees will go to military posts and bases throughout Georgia this year. The program has delivered about 200,000 trees to 65 military bases in 17 countries since 2005.

“The opportunity we have to give back a little bit of something through our support of Trees to Troops is just a great experience” said Doak Slay, FedEx Freight Vice-President for the Southeast Region. “And obviously to give back to the brave servicemen and women that give us our freedom and protect us every day, putting their life on the line and making the great sacrifices they make.”

Families were lining up at 6:30 a.m. as FedEx volunteers donning purple Santa Claus hats unloaded trucks of trees. Fort Benning soldiers joined in to carry, load pickup trucks and strap trees to the tops of cars.

“It’s the best workday of the year for me,” Slay said. “It’s really fun to watch the kids, and their eyes just get really, really big ’cause they’re excited.”

Messages in support of troops were written on large tags and attached to the trees, many from tweets with the hashtag #TreesforTroops.

This story was originally published December 5, 2017 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Fort Benning families take home 600 Christmas trees in Trees for Troops giveaway."