DHL Operation Holiday Cheer Delivers Joy to U.S. Troops Overseas

NEW YORK, Dec. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- This holiday season, DHL Express is delivering 500 fresh-cut Christmas trees, thousands of handwritten letters as well as menorahs, festive decorations, and other gifts to U.S. troops stationed abroad. The massive holiday haul will arrive at U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain and Kuwait just in time to give our service members a traditional holiday experience. DHL Operation Holiday Cheer, a charitable program DHL runs in partnership with the New York community, is now in its sixteenth year.

"The holiday season is especially difficult for our servicemen and women overseas, who sacrifice celebrating with their friends and family to instead protect our nation's freedom," said Greg Hewitt, CEO of DHL Express U.S. "DHL is honored to be able to partner with local organizations to bring a little bit of the love, support and holiday cheer from home directly to our troops abroad."

Operation Holiday Cheer kicks off on Monday, December 9, with a celebration at NY-based Dees' Nursery. Local community members, veterans groups, school children and Nassau County dignitaries – including Santa himself will appear bearing gifts from DHL. The schoolchildren and the Girl Scouts of Nassau County will recite letters they wrote to soldiers, followed by a performance of holiday and patriotic songs by the USO Show Troupe.

From Dees' location, a police motorcade will escort the vehicles carrying trees, letters, menorahs, gifts, and decorations to the DHL Gateway facility at JFK International Airport. From there, DHL employees, the VFW, law enforcement personnel, and members of the community will work together loading the donations onto a DHL aircraft. After a quick stop at the DHL Americas Hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport (CVG), a DHL 777 aircraft will travel nonstop to the DHL Bahrain hub where the special holiday cargo will be dispatched to military bases and troops stationed in the Middle East.

In addition to the Christmas trees from Dees' Nursery, other decorations and gifts were made possible by generous donations from local businesses and community organizations including  Adelis International Security, Adopt-a-Soldier Platoon, and Proctor-Hopson Post 1896 Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), in addition to VFW members from across New York State.

DHL Operation Holiday Cheer has sent approximately 11,000 trees from the Dees' Christmas tree farm in Maine providing holiday cheer to soldiers serving our country around the world.  

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