‘Responses were amazing’: Angels appear for Operation Christmas Drop
MONROE — Angels recently gathered for Operation Christmas Drop, an Angels 4 Vets project designed to deliver food and gifts to local disabled and homebound veterans. With support from the community, Christmas came early for more than 80 veterans.
By selecting a named ornament from one of six Christmas trees set up throughout the county, participants adopted a veteran for the holiday season.
Names included veterans from WWII to the War on Terror. Volunteers delivered to disabled and homebound veterans and several veterans with children.
Items such as coffee, food, home cleaning products and soaps, winter clothing like socks, hats, gloves, dinner packages, gift cards and large, sturdy laundry baskets were needed.
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“We had 83 veterans that we delivered baskets to,” William Bruck said in an email. “We delivered about 120 laundry baskets plus countless bags and boxes. We had 70 vets last year.”
Bruck, a U.S Army veteran and state representative, owns Visiting Angels of Monroe, a national provider of in-home care for the elderly.
“In 2015, I wanted to do something special for the homebound veterans in our community,” Bruck said. “That year, I was able to get a few donations, but mostly purchased the items through Visiting Angels. The following year, I founded Angels 4 Vets to facilitate the program. Each year, it has grown and, in 2017, we started setting up trees with ornaments on them for donors to take and bring back usable items such as toiletries, house cleaning supplies, food and clothing to make the drop-offs more meaningful to the veterans.”
In 2020, Bruck was deployed to Iraq and Syria so the office staff took over the program and started incorporating volunteers to deliver the gifts.
“This has allowed us to expand the program greatly,” he said. “The past AMVETS commander, Sam Struth, and past DAV commander, Guy Howe, have been spectacular at getting volunteers organized to do the drop offs.”
Prior to 2020, Bruck made all the deliveries, which could take up to a week to complete.
This year, volunteers made deliveries on Dec. 20 and 21.
Assigned to routes, the teams dropped off gifts and a certificate for each of the vets to honor their service.
“All the items take up most of our office space at Visiting Angels, so for the past week, as drop off items came in, office staff had to traverse the ever-growing piles of donated baskets of gifts,” he said. “Traci Reyes-Marcum, office manager, said, ‘This is such a joy to be involved in helping these veterans. The extra work of gathering and organizing the Angels 4 Vets program is a way our Visiting Angels staff do their part to help others.’”
Bruck said he was grateful to the Bedford Township Veterans Center; Food Town Fresh Market; Little Blessings Veteran Outreach; Monroe Home Care Shoppe and The Mall of Monroe where this year’s trees were located.
“This was our ninth year running the Operation Christmas Drop through Angels 4 Vets. This was the largest year in donations received and volunteers doing deliveries,” Bruck said. “The responses were amazing. All of the volunteers expressed immense gratitude for letting them deliver and the veterans were grateful. Many of the volunteers said they responded with tears of joy.”
As a combat veteran, Bruck said it is a privilege to honor those who have served our country.
“Many of them do not have family around and to have a part in encouraging them during the Christmas season is an awesome feeling,” he said. “To also see the community overwhelmingly support the program is a great feeling, as well. I am truly blessed to be a part of the Monroe County community.”
— Contact reporter Lisa Vidaurri-Bowling at lvidaurribowling@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: ‘Responses were amazing’: Angels appear for Operation Christmas Drop
