Wahmhoff Farms Nursery in Gobles has shipped out more than 300 Christmas trees to military bases around the country as part of its Trees for Troops program this year.
The big loading day was Monday as volunteers tagged and stuffed semi trailers with trees that were donated by farms throughout the state. Wahmhoff Farms Nursey’s Betsy Wahmhoff Perales tells us everything went off without a hitch.
“I think we had more volunteers this year than we’ve ever had,” Wahmhoff Perales said. “It was such an amazing group of people. We had over 120 people here on hand to help with the loading of that, and we loaded 363 Christmas trees.”
Dignitaries included state Senator Aric Nesbitt, state Representative Pauline Wendzel, and representatives from the offices of Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow. Wahmhoff Perales says the whole community gets involved.
“We hand them these Trees for Troops tags that are filled in by the Gobles Elementary kindergarten through fifth graders. They draw pictures and say thank you for serving our country.”
With so many volunteers, Wahmhoff Perales says it only took about a half hour to load up all of the trees and send them on their way. It’s a good thing, too, because Monday’s winter storm started to hit about the time they were finishing up.
The trees are being sent to military families at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi and Fort Knox in Kentucky. Some excess trees they managed to add on to the shipment are also going to Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
