CUMMING, Ga. — A Forsyth County tree farm is one of many businesses making sure military families are supported during the holiday season.
The program, "Trees for Troops," provides free Christmas trees to United States armed forces members and their families across the country during the holidays.
Bottoms Christmas Tree Farm is one of the businesses participating in the program locally to support Georgia military families.
"Customers and businesses and schools throughout Forsyth County and North Georgia donate each year," said Nathan Bottom, a tree farmer at Bottoms Christmas Tree Farm. "For every $50 raised, a tree is donated to a Georgia military family."
He said FedEx will come and pick up the trees and help deliver them to families. This year the pickup date is set for Dec. 2.
"Last year we did about 150 trees," Bottoms said.
Bottoms said the trees are taken to places like Fort Benning and families line up to get their tree off of the trucks.
"It's a great sponsorship for military and support for them and a way to let the military families that maybe their husbands or wives overseas know that people still care and people are thinking about them in the holiday season," he explained.
"We love our military," Bottoms added. "The Trees for Troops program is our way of giving back to them."
The Bottoms Christmas Tree Farm has participated in the program about 15 years.
Trees For Troops will send out more than14,000 trees to dozens of military bases across the nation between Nov. 30 and Dec11. For additional information, visit the program's website.