Carrot-Top Cares: Soldiers’ Angels Adopt-A-Family

As part of our Carrot-Top Cares program, we are always looking for ways to help others in communities across America throughout the year. For the holidays, Carrot-Top Industries’ employees unanimously agreed to help a military family through Soldiers’ Angels. Since 2003, Soldiers’ Angels has provided programs to support military families, deployed service members, wounded heroes and veterans of all eras in a variety of unique and effective ways. It offers programs which provide: 

• Homeless and low-income veteran's assistance 
• Cards and letters of encouragement for the deployed 
• VA hospital volunteers
• Care packages for deployed service members
• Handmade gifts for military family members
• Adaptive laptops for wounded and injured veterans
• Caregiver support for female caregivers of Post 9/11 wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans
• Adopt-A-Family to support military and veteran families during the holidays
• Support for expectant spouses of deployed service members and expectant active-duty female service members
• And much more 

In December 2019, Soldiers’ Angels matched Carrot-Top Industries with a Navy Veteran family of seven through their Adopt-A-Family program. For the family, trying to survive day-to-day to meet basic needs was hard enough, so the idea of giving each other Christmas gifts was an impossible dream. The five children didn’t ask for much, and their wish list wasn’t grand. They were grateful for the small things in life while valuing their time together as a family. Our employee donations allowed us to give each child clothing and toys, and the entire family received a special holiday meal delivered by a local grocery store. Several of our business partners even joined in to help buy bed frames and mattresses for the children. 

The matriarch of the veteran’s family let us know they had the best Christmas ever. While the kids loved all of their outfits and toys, the beds were the biggest hit. One of the children talked about his “heaven bed,” and many of the kids slept with their new clothes and toys on Christmas Day. It was an important reminder to us all not to take things for granted like a safe and comfortable place to live and sleep, food to eat, and our health.  

Our American service members and their families make sacrifices daily without asking for anything in return. Their selflessness makes it too easy for others to forget about all they do for our country. As we all know, it is difficult for anyone to ask for help, but it is especially difficult for a service member or veteran. It was important for Carrot-Top Industries to support a veteran family during a difficult time and let them know they aren’t forgotten. Soldiers’ Angels motto is “May no soldier go unloved.” We hope that for one veteran and his family, they felt loved at Christmas and into the new year.