The Salvation Army Partners with other Nonprofits to Help Veterans across West Michigan.
The Salvation Army in Kent County partnered with other non-profits April 24, to give back to those that served our country. Learn more about the event now.
Organized by the Home Depot Foundation and the Heart of West Michigan United Way, the annual event brought volunteers together to complete landscaping and outdoor home repair projects for local military veterans, current service members and their families across West Michigan.
The event began early in the morning at the Home Depot in Walker at a volunteer rally. “This is our seventh year of Operator United and every year this event continues to grow,” Scott Sorenson, Senior Account Manager with the Heart of West Michigan United Way told volunteers. “It cannot happen without the support we’ve had from our community, Home Depot, and our volunteers. It’s a challenging time right now and we’ve got so many veterans that need our support.”
Major Heidi Reed of The Salvation Army Grand Rapids Kroc Center also shared a few words before she gave the opening prayer. “Veterans need to know that people care, and I just want to thank everyone for coming together to support the Veterans of our community. The Salvation Army loves Veterans. We have a long history of serving veterans that goes back to Donut Day and WWI. And we continue today to support Veterans through the services we provide. So please, if you know of a Veteran and they need some help, please send them to The Salvation Army.”
The Salvation Army in Kent County has partnered with The Home Depot Association, local “Team Depot” associates and hundreds of volunteers since 2015 by serving lunches to volunteers. Chris Striebel, Great Lakes executive director of emergency disaster services, has been working with Home Depot from the beginning. “The Salvation Army is known for helping veterans and for our canteens,” Chris said, “So when Home Depot reached out asking if we could feed volunteers, we knew we wanted to help in any way we could.”
If you would like to nominate a veteran for a home improvement project next year, go to https://www.hwmuw.org/veterans. To donate to The Salvation Army in Kent County go sakentcounty.org.