A trans-Atlantic goodwill mission

Hundreds gathered outside Dees’ Nursery in Oceanside on Dec. 6 to mark the seventh year of DHL Operation Holiday Cheer, a charitable program in which holiday trees, decorations and encouraging messages for U.S. troops serving overseas are collected and shipped to them for the Christmas season.

The program began in 2004, after a woman asked Tom DiDominica Sr., the owner of Dees’, if she could send a Christmas tree to her son stationed in Iraq. DiDominica liked the idea but needed a way to ship the tree, so he relayed the request to a friend, Jim Adelis, a local businessman who had a son serving in Iraq at the time.

Adelis contacted DHL Express as well as other members of the community, with the idea of delivering more than one tree that holiday season. Through a partnership among DHL, Dees’, residents and businesses that continues to this day, Dees’ donated a total of 135 Christmas trees in 2004, along with lights, decorations and messages to soldiers stationed at Camp Anaconda in Iraq.

For last week’s program, Dees’, along with Citizens for Soldiers in Service, the New York State VFW, and Dees’ customers and community members donated 500 trees to military camps in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bahrain with the help of DHL. Starting a little after 10 a.m. on Dec. 6, the community sendoff ceremony of Operation Holiday Cheer began with a procession by a Nassau County Police Department color guard and a band.

Afterward, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano spoke to the large crowd. “This is a wonderful program,” Mangano said. “It’s so great to be able to bring the holiday cheer to our brave servicemen overseas.”

Town of Hempstead Clerk Mark Bonilla also spoke, referring to Operation Holiday Cheer as a “great start to the Christmas season” and saying that the brave soldiers protecting our freedom and sacrificing their own lives in Iraq and Afghanistan defined the spirit of our country.