Trees for Troops arrive at MacDill Air Force Base

The Trees For Troops "tour" continues this week. I was in Tampa Tuesday to be part of the delivery of 550 fresh, farm-grown Christmas Trees to MacDill Air Force Base. It is so great to be part of the excitement of this event that is happening all over the U.S. (about 16,000 military families 51 bases will receive a donated Christmas Tree before the program finishes up on Friday).

I'm sharing a couple of photos from the MacDill deliveries. Above is the beginning of tree selection after FedEx volunteers unloaded the trees. Under it are the posters (with greetings to military families) that FedEx Office gathered from their customers at several store locations. These posters ... along with Christmas cards from school children) were a real "hit" with the families.

Caleb Vanderburg (6) displays a very special tree (made from a tree trunk and tree branch) with his mom Amy. The entire Vanderburg family (David, Amy, Abigail (9) and Caleb display their Christmas Tree.

A reporter from Fox TV 13 in Tampa recorded the events at MacDill AFB.

SSgt. Bud Wendel, USAF, told him "Before we had kids, we would never really get into it. But now it's all about hanging up the lights and having fun with the family and doing lights. But while we're doing that, we're thinking about all the guys that are being deployed as well."

As we near the end of the 2008 program, it looks like we will have delivered fresh, farm-grown trees to 50,000 military families in the four years of our program.

Don't forget, we need your donations to help afford to keep the Trees for Troops program available. You can do it on-line by going to http://www.treesfortroops.org.

Thanks.