It's official!
With the help of each and every purchase through you, our customers, we have been able to successfully send off our first batch of beef jerky donations to soldiers stationed overseas. In the box being shipped, there is a total of 25 Taste of Home beef jerky bags being shipped the 5,617 mi to a platoon leader who I had the pleasure of engaging with. This process wouldn't have been possible without the contribution donated through each and every customer we had the pleasure of serving with.
We had many customers take action and specifically buy bags of jerky to donate overseas which was an incredible sight to see. Many of these contributors were local community members from a social media post I had shared on my Facebook page. The donations came from farmers & Ranchers, parents of active military members, retired military members continuing to make an impact, and share the concept and finally friends of friends who had engaged with the movement through other forms of social media and sharing. The outreach was incredible and with your help wish to continue this goal.
So how did we end up choosing this particular unit as our first shipment? For the longest time, I had ambitions to attend the United States Military Academy otherwise known as West Point held in the mountains of West Point, New York. During my countless hours of research and understanding the culture I was hoping to embark down, I stumbled upon a youtube video by Justin Taylor titled "How to get into West Point." Yes I realize this was a little cliche, anyways, I was watching his videos about the inside scoop that was West Point and was very persuaded.
Continuing the story, a few years later (never actually attended West Point) an Instagram post had come upon my feed where Taylor (now an Infantry Platoon Leader in the U.S. Army) had expressed that his unit was being deployed overseas. What an excellent time to correlate this process of donation and giving back to someone whom better than I had known was being deployed. As a way to say thank you and to be able to share with his platoon, I reached out and explained the purpose of our organization. He expressed that he would be more than willing to help share the jerky with his unit and to take a few candids for our following. Needless to say, Saturday we shipped out a batch to his unit and we are currently waiting to see when the package arrives!
To continue this trend of making a difference and being able to share with others, we want to again thank each and every one of our customers for being able to share a "Taste of Home" with the men and women stationed overseas serving in our Armed Forces. This mission couldn't have been accomplished without your participation so we say thank you. Remember our goal is to be able to send as much beef jerky as possible. If you happen to know of any military members currently serving overseas make sure to reach out to us and we would love to add them to our donation list to be able to provide them and their unit a little Taste of Home during their deployment giving them a sense that we appreciate their work and we have got their backs during this time.
