Ahead of the holiday season, the Red Cross is helping spread cheer to our heroes

In preparation for this year’s holiday season, the American Red Cross of North Florida is launching its annual Holiday for Heroes initiative.

Holiday for Heroes is a long-running campaign that offers residents across north Florida a special way to care for and honor our military heroes.

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Holiday for Heroes provides the community with the opportunity to write messages and donate items for holiday care packages to be distributed to active-duty military members deployed around the world and local veterans in hospitals or nursing homes.

These items and notes are graciously donated by residents and placed inside hand-sewn holiday stockings made with love by volunteers.

The Red Cross, with partners, will assemble and deliver these stockings, filled with messages of thanks and donated items, to military members and veterans away from their families during the holidays.

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“The Red Cross commits to serving the military community at every step -- from the time a service member takes the oath to navigating life as a veteran,” says Christian Smith, CEO, American Red Cross of North Florida. “Working with our service members and veterans day-to-day, I understand how much they sacrifice for our country and how much community support means to them, especially over the holidays.”

Get Involved:

  • Items for care packages can be purchased from your favorite online retailer and shipped directly to the Red Cross collection site at 751 Riverside Avenue, Jacksonville, FL 32204.

  • To purchase items from the Holiday for Heroes online registry visit www.redcross.org/holiday4heroes. Please select the auto-populated American Red Cross option during the checkout process as your shipping address.

  • To schedule a drop off of collected items at your closest Red Cross office, please call our Service to Armed Forces number at 904-999-3547 to coordinate.

Help support the Red Cross’s work with military members Armed Forces by becoming a volunteer at redcross.org/volunteer.

Click here to learn more about Holiday for Heros.

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