Starting in 2005, a nonprofit called Christmas Spirit Foundation began its “Trees for Troops” program, which distributes free Christmas trees to families and active-duty servicemembers on United States military bases.
Since then, the group’s executive director, Rick Dungey, said over 326,000 farm-fresh Christmas trees have been donated to military families.
“That first year, we were able to do 4,300 trees to five different bases,” Dungey told Fox Weather. “I remember at the time, people thought it was just a crazy idea that wouldn’t catch on, but it did. And now we’re doing our 21st consecutive year.”
While the program brings holiday cheer every December, Dungey said it’s a year-long undertaking to get trees where they need to be.
In 2025, he estimates that the foundation will exceed 19,000 donated trees from more than 340 farms across 28 states.
“Those [trees] have to be gathered together in 56 locations — farms and garden centers — and FedEx picks them up,” he explained. “And they’re going to 94 different bases. And that all has to happen in a 10-day period.”
This effort requires all hands on deck, with countless volunteers and community members gathering the trees, hand-writing cards, and even adding handcrafted ornaments made by local children, to be delivered to bases.
At New York’s Ellms Family Farm, state National Guard members joined community members to support the area’s regional pickup for this year’s distribution. The farm has been supporting the program since its inception in 2005.
“Most of them say the same thing, how this reminded them of home and family,” owner Garth Ellms told Military.com, about the troops who benefit from the tree program. “To help our troops enjoy that moment or memory is why we continue to do this.”
FedEx has also supported the Christmas Spirit Foundation’s mission since the beginning.
“For 21 years, FedEx Freight has been honored to carry more than just cargo alongside the Christmas Spirit Foundation — we carry a piece of home to the doorsteps of our nation’s military families,” Shannon Davis, a spokesperson for FedEx, told Military.com.
“Delivering these trees is our way of saying ‘thank you’ and helping light the holidays for service members and their loved ones.”
The distribution is especially helpful amid increased financial pressure for families across the country, including those serving the military. According to the Military Family Advisory Network, one in four active duty military families experience food insecurity, compared to one in eight U.S. households.
Taking the cost of a Christmas tree out of the budget makes a real difference — and allows service members and their families to truly celebrate the holiday season.
“Nothing says ‘Merry Christmas’ or starts the holidays more than a real tree,” Wendy Richardson of Richardson Farms in Illinois, told Fox Weather. “The smell, the memories of getting a tree — whether it’s at a tree farm or when it’s delivered to the base — it’s a very warm feeling for us to see people appreciating that tree.”
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Header image courtesy of Trees for Troops/Facebook
