11/24/06 Trees for Troops

Christmas Trees for the Troops. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. With Thanksgiving just past, the focus is on the Christmas holiday and one of the most enduring symbols of Christmas is the tree. Steve Drake is with the Christmas Spirit Foundation who is sending trees to the troops. DRAKE: Well we've got a great program going, second year, Christmas tree growers from 27 states are donating trees to military families and soldiers and sailors and marines themselves. About 800 trees come out of Washington and about 3000 coming out of Oregon headed for families from Fort Lewis to Camp Jejune to McDill Air Force Base to the Fifth Fleet. Basically soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen in 17 countries all donated by the tree growers and the shipping is provided free of charge by FedEx so it's a great program. According to Drake, a lot of people are taking notice of the program. DRAKE: You know the interesting thing is the emails we are getting from Vietnam vets that have seen this story and say you know I was in Vietnam during Christmas and nobody thought about me and thanks for doing this for these soldiers. It's really cool. Drake says they spend a lot of time contacting state associations looking for tree donations. DRAKE: Well, through like the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Growers Association we go to the states and the states locate people. Through FedEx and the growers we've got pick up locations and then farms will bring trees to that centralized location like Rochester and places like that, down near Salem, Oregon, etc. There are 49 different pick up locations then the FedEx trucks come and pick them up and there's just this elaborate&last year we did 4000 trees to 5 bases. This year it's 12,000 trees to 23 bases. The not-for-profit organization is delivering trees all over. DRAKE: We're going to Great Lakes. It looks like the base in Jacksonville, that's a last minute add on and then the Fifth Fleet which is just, well they got them going to; it's incredible; they're going to Egypt, the horn of Africa which is like 9 countries, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Afghanistan, Southwest Asia and the desert soldiers they call them. Visit treesfortroops.org for more information on how you can help out this year. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.