Maine donates 301 Christmas trees to active service members

SEARSMONT, Maine (WABI) - Made in Maine will have special meaning for more than 300 active duty military members around the country this holiday.

“Those of us who have served our country and been away from home during the holiday, it has a huge impact,” says Jim Roberts, Commander for the Randall Collins VFW in Belfast.

That’s why he and other members of the VFW spent a chilly morning helping to load 301 fresh Christmas trees onto a FedEx truck.

“Some are grown at the prison farm, some are grown right here in Searsmont,” explains Roberts, “some are grown all over the state that get donated and brought here.”

Each tree is destined for an active duty service member spending the holidays away from home.

This year, Maine trees are headed to the 910th Airlift Wing in Youngstown, Ohio, West Point Military Academy, Fort Gregg-Adams in Central, Virginia and the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut.

Local elementary school students wrote cards that are individually attached.

“And so when the service member gets the tree out, they can see the card as well,” says Roberts.

And each tree also comes with an entire box of unique ornaments.

“We have ladies that make all of these hand made ornaments,” says Melba Fisher, who helps to organize the effort. “And they make over 5,000 every year. They have relatives in other states that even ship them in to us. Maine is the only place that sends out ornaments. And we’ve been doing it for many years. We are now getting calls from other states- they want to try to do it.”

This is the 20th year for the Trees for Troops program. And in that time, they’ve delivered more than 300,000 trees to troops all over the country and even abroad.

“Actually one of the gentlemen that was here loading today, he was a recipient of a tree a couple of years ago,” says Roberts. “It bought tears to his eyes. It tugs at your heart to know that somebody, somewhere is sending you a token from Maine for the holidays.”

All branches of the military including active members of the U.S. Space Force are eligible for the Christmas trees.

They are due to arrive between Dec. 15-20.