HOME OF THE BRAVE

Established in 2012 and gifted to Soldiers’ Angels by Peraton in 2020, Home of the Brave partners with the VA Center for Development and Civic Engagement (CDCE) and corporate partner employees to honor and support Veterans at VA medical facilities on or around Veterans Day. Volunteers organize special events, visit patients, and donate much-needed items during the days leading up to or immediately following November 11. To date, the program has supported over 264,000 Veterans. The campaign is now officially branded as Soldiers’ Angels Home of the Brave and Peraton has continued as its title sponsor.

Title Sponsor

In 2022, in just one week, Soldiers’ Angels Home of the Brave served 131 VA medical facility sites in 46 states plus Washington, D.C., with 895 volunteers spending more than 6,500 hours to honor 25,047 Veterans.

Since 2012, 6,897 volunteers have contributed

48,807 volunteer hours, honoring 264,461 Veterans, totaling over $1,886,000.

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

Bronze Sponsor

We had the honor and the privilege to visit the Access Housing Inc. Washington, D.C. Southeast Veterans Services Center. During our visit we had an ice cream social and gave each Veteran a bag with hygiene kits, gloves, T-shirts, caps, thank you cards, and wristbands. We had so much fun serving them and talking to them about their time in their respective branch of service. Each Veteran was so thankful and they thanked us for everything. We even joked around about the different branches of service. The Executive Director, Greg Crawford, gave us a tour of the facility and also showed us drawings of a plan to build a new facility in the future. We were also invited to come back and join them for their Thanksgiving dinner where they have former NFL players serving the Veterans. It truly was a great feeling and event.

— Dana Richardson, Peraton Employee

We enjoyed our HOTB event! We passed out our cinch bags in an assembly line style along with lunch from Jason’s Deli! The Veterans were very grateful that we were there! Soldiers’ Angels were the first volunteers since COVID that were allowed in the patient rooms for Home of the Brave! The Veterans were so thankful for the blankets we made for them and for the interaction with Soldiers’ Angels! What a blessing it is to give back to our Veterans!

— Tasha Scantling

HIGHLIGHT MISSION: UGLY SWEATERS OVERSEAS

Weeks before December, a deployed Chaplain reached out to the Soldiers’ Angels Chaplain Support Team with a special request: ugly Christmas sweaters, and lots of them! He was planning a holiday party for the Service Members he supported and hoped that something fun and silly might bring a smile to their faces.

The Angels on the Chaplain Support Team didn’t even think twice! They gathered boxes of sweaters and got them in the mail to the Chaplain as quickly as possible. The Angels knew this mission was about more than providing some party clothes — this was about sending something that would boost morale during a time of the year that is particularly difficult for deployed troops. Something silly, like receiving an ugly sweater to wear to the base holiday party, might be just the thing to get them through the holidays.

After the Chaplain received the first few sweaters, he had this to say:

“Hope all is well. Yes, we just picked up the mail yesterday and we received seven ugly sweaters. Some Soldiers saw them, and they were so excited to grab them, but I told them not to. LOL. The joy that came over my face and the few Soldiers that saw them was priceless. I can’t wait for the rest to get here and to distribute them in December.”

When we received that message back, we knew we were on track for making the holiday party a memorable one for those deployed! So, we decided to take it to the next level! One of the annual traditions at Soldiers’ Angels is to have a staff Ugly Sweater Contest and ask our Facebook followers to vote for the winner. But what if this year we made the contest be our staff against the deployed Service Members? Stateside vs. Deployed!

We coordinated with the Chaplain once more and shared the idea with him. He loved it and agreed to send photos back as soon as he had them. So… we crossed our fingers and waited… hoping we would get the photos back in time.

Thankfully, we did!! And so — on National Ugly Sweater Day, just hours after the deployed Service Members celebrated their holiday party in their sweaters— we were able to share our first-ever (and first of what will hopefully become an annual tradition) “Stateside vs. Deployed Ugly Sweater Contest!”

We opened the contest up for voting on our social media channels and, naturally, Deployed won by a landslide! Which was perfect because the real prize for all of us here Stateside was just to see the smiles on their faces in their BDU’s, combat boots, and some truly ugly sweaters.

Program Impact

Provided over

$264,169,581 in aid to Military & Veteran families since 2003

Provided support to over 877,224 Service Members, Veterans, wounded heroes & their families in 2022 alone

Sent over 1,004,563 care packages to combat deployed Service Members over the last 19 years

278,061 Angel Volunteer Hours

Largest volunteer network of any charity of its kind in the country since 2003

Angel Volunteers are the heart of the organization and represent all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and 31 countries abroad

2022 Impact

36,119 Veterans provided with food assistance

31,863 care packages sent to deployed

190,328 letters and cards mailed to deployed, Veterans and caregivers

1,820 baby shower boxes for expectant Military/Veteran spouses, as well as female Military/Veterans

18 deployed Chaplains supported

With the help of our supporters, OUR COLLECTION CAMPAIGNS collected and redistributed over

$23,262,218 WORTH OF ITEMS

258 female Military caregivers supported

1,758 families adopted for the holidays including 4,500 children

2,367Veterans provided with transportation to/from appointments at the VA

INCLUDING:

147,292 lbs of extra Halloween candy during TREATS FOR TROOPS

40,650 STUFFED HOLIDAY STOCKINGS

88,784 pairs of SOCKS for WARM FEET FOR WARRIORS

39,121 CARE PACKAGE ITEMS in just the second year of Go Camo

$3,299 WORTH OF DOG ITEMS collected in just one week during the first year of our campaign benefiting Military Working Dogs