Governor, Students Join Trees for Troops Effort at The Rocks Estate

Gov. Hassan at The Rocks with the family of Kyle Ferland.

Governor Maggie Hassan and students from Bethlehem Elementary School helped spread some holiday magic this week, as they joined the annual Trees for Troops effort at The Rocks Estate.

As proud and happy purveyors of holiday cheer, The Rocks has actively supported the Trees for Troops program since its inception a decade ago. Founded in 2005, Trees for Troops works with farmers all over the country to deliver farm-grown Christmas trees to U.S. military personnel and their families throughout the United States and abroad.

Each year, students from Bethlehem Elementary School, just down the road from The Rocks, help raise money to purchase Christmas trees for the Trees for Troops effort and spend a morning at the farm loading trees. This week they set to work tagging 450 trees from farms in New Hampshire and Vermont with holiday messages and loading them onto a FedEx truck bound for a military base in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Governor Hassan arrived at The Rocks later to select a tree to cut and send to Kyle Ferland of Sugar Hill, who is serving aboard a Navy aircraft carrier currently stationed in the Middle East. Hassan’s task underlined the importance of the Trees for Troops mission to share a bit of the joy of the season with military men and women who are often away from their families during the holidays – as well as the families at home missing their loved ones.

Since its inception, Trees for Troops has delivered more than 139,000 farm-grown Christmas trees to military personnel and their families on dozens of military bases throughout the United States and abroad. FedEx has donated more than 493,000 miles of shipping to Trees for Troops in that time.

Amid the hard work and heavy lifting during the Trees for Troops effort at The Rocks each year, the children’s laughter rises through the frosty air, spontaneous caroling sometimes breaks out, and the joy of the holidays is carried with the trees to servicemen and women far from home.

To find out more about this effort, including how you may contribute to it, please visit the Trees for Troops website.

For a video of this year’s effort at The Rocks, check out this production by the Littleton Record.