Ten days, 51 pick-up locations, 26 states and 16,252 Christmas trees. Over the past 20 years, the Christmas SPIRIT Foundations Trees for Troops (T4T) program has provided 94 military bases across the U.S. a little extra joy during the holiday season.
A group called the National Christmas Tree Association decided they wanted to create a new charitable group with a singular mission, to promote Christmas spirit, back in 2005 – that’s where the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation was born.
Rick Dungey, the now executive director of the Christmas SPIRIT foundation, laughed at the idea.
“That’s a pretty nebulous thing, right?” he said.
Dungey sports a grey T4T trucker hat and a red flannel. His outward appearance doesn’t quite match his warm, inviting personality. He looks like a stereotypical Midwestern grandpa, and it’s obvious he’s proud of the program he’s participated in all of these years.
Christmas tree growers near military bases were already providing the troops’ trees, but the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation wanted growers around the country to be able to participate.
“We had a contact at FedEx and [they] said ‘we like your mission, is there any way we can work together?’” Dungey said. “We had this crazy idea. If there were farms not near a base that wanted to also donate some trees, would [FedEx] be willing to go and pick them up and haul them to bases that were not near a farm?”
FedEx would allow them to take something so local to the national level.
“FedEx said ‘yeah, actually that’s something we can do,’” Dungey’s face broke out into a wide grin. “Everyone thought it was just a crazy idea.”
In the first year, T4T donated a total of 4,300 trees to five bases across the U.S., and other growers around the country began to catch wind. Each year, T4T had more and more growers reach out and offer trees.
Rows of Fraser Fir, Balsam Fir, White Pine and Canaan Fir trees stand like nutcracker soldiers across the Schroeder’s Forevergreens wholesale lots in Marquette and Waushara counties. It took between eight and 10 years to produce their first fully-grown Christmas tree. Now, there are 16 acres of trees ready for this holiday season.
Nineteen years ago, Schoeder’s Forevergreens became the Wisconsin host site for the T4T. Wisconsin growers have donated hundreds of trees to be loaded up and shipped out of the Schroeder lot.
Sue and Tom Schroeder have been in the Christmas tree business for nearly 50 years.
When the Schroeder’s first started selling Christmas trees, they bought from other farmers in
Wisconsin. Sue said the quality was so hit or miss that they decided to start growing their own.
When T4T began collecting consumer donations, the Schroeder’s got to work pre-selecting trees.
“They need to be within a certain height [and width]. It can’t be too big because usually military housing is quite compact,” Sue said matter-of-factly.
The trailer of a semi-truck sits in the lawn at Schroeder’s Forevergreens. Eventually, it’ll be filled with donated Christmas trees decked out in personalized tags on their way to a base somewhere across the country.
Inside of the little red retail building, there is a wall decked out in photos of smiling service members posing with their Schroeder trees. For $25, customers receive the little tag to write a personal message on.
The Schroeder’s take great pride in their ability to support the U.S. military. Supplying Christmas trees is their way of giving back and saying thank you for their service.
“We really value our military,” Sue said. “And we hope that we can bring a little bit of happiness to the folks that are receiving the trees.”
In the first few years of T4T, Schroeder’s Forevergreens gained a fair amount of media attention. Suddenly, people were constantly asking how they could get involved.
“We were thrilled when we got the opportunity to open it up to the consumer,” Sue said. At just $25 per tree, the business sees no profit from this endeavor.
“We just feel that we need to support our military anywhere we can, and that’s one way we can do it,” Sue said.
Dungey said T4T has left a lasting impact on the communities they’ve been able to supply trees to. He will have service members tell him they remember their trees from the earliest years of the program and how much it meant to them. Some have even become parents of the next generation of military and ask him how they can donate to their child’s base.
“This year, out of the 93 bases that are getting trees, 20 are getting trees for the very first time,” Dungey said. “The most common way that we get new bases added is when somebody was stationed at a base that got trees before and now they’re stationed at a different location.”
He’ll often receive calls asking what it will take to get a tree for their new home.
“What that tells me is our program is achieving its mission so well that it really made an impact on people,” Dungey said. “It made a strong enough positive impact that people remember it even after years later.”
Katie Baneck and her husband Benjamin Baneck have received three trees from T4T while stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
“We both grew up with real trees,” Baneck said. “But since we have been married, even before the army, we never had enough money to spend on a real Christmas tree. It was really fun to be able to give our kids some of the traditions that we had growing up.”
Katie said having a real Christmas tree just makes the holiday season more fun. While they won’t be participating this year, she hopes to receive a T4T Christmas tree again next Christmas.
Christmas only comes once a year, but the work for T4T is never over. Dungey said his favorite part about working for the program is getting asked what he does for the other 50 weeks out of the year.
“I get to explain the scale and the scope of what it takes to put this kind of thing together,” Dungey said. For some, the task might seem daunting, but not for him. He loves every minute of it. “It really takes all year long to plan it out and to implement.”
Families post TikTok’s dancing in front of their donated tree. The wife of a newly deployed husband told Dungey if it wasn’t for T4T, they wouldn’t have thought to decorate that year.
“You know, our mission is to improve Christmas spirit and that’s kind of nebulous and can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” Dungey said. “But when you get that kind of feedback, it’s not so nebulous to me anymore. It really just means you’re having a positive impact on people who really deserve it.”
