Walmart Grant Supports St. Louis Fisher House This Holiday

Today, veteran families staying at the St. Louis Medical Center Fisher House joined together with representatives from Walmart to celebrate the holiday season and a new Walmart grant. The more than $7,800 donation for home improvements and holiday festivities to the local Fisher House was made as part of Walmart’s Holiday Sing to Salute Military Families campaign, which encourages individuals to show support for military and veteran families through their own voice. For the past 25 years, Fisher Houses have provided a home-away-from-home for military and veterans’ families whose loved ones are in a nearby military or veterans hospital. A total initial donation of $500,000 initial was distributed among more than 60 U.S.-based Fisher Houses.

In recent years, more than 250,000 military men and women have returned home from overseas annually, many of whom are seeking medical treatment and are being treated at hospitals far from home. Walmart’s Holiday Sing to Salute Military Families campaign aims to help provide lodging for military families staying at Fisher Houses on U.S. military bases, while offering a platform for the general public to show its support for our military, veterans and their families during the holiday season.

In addition to the initial donation to Fisher House Foundation, from now to Dec. 22, Walmart is asking the public to help share holiday songs with military and veteran families by creating a holiday greeting or video of one or more individuals singing a portion of a classic holiday song. For each post published on a public Instagram, Twitter or YouTube account with the hashtag #Sing2Salute during the campaign, Walmart will donate $100, up to $1 million, to Fisher House Foundation. The goal is to help Fisher House Foundation fund a full year of lodging for military families staying at Fisher Houses on U.S. military bases. To learn more about Walmart’s Holiday Sing to Salute Military Families campaign, review rules for participation and see featured videos, visit www.walmart.com/sing2salute.

Walmart’s support of military families and veterans this holiday season is just one way the company is demonstrating its long-standing commitment to support men and women in uniform. This October, Walmart launched the Greenlight A Vet campaign to help create visible and actionable national support for veterans nationwide. Walmart invited all Americans to show support for veterans by changing one light bulb in their home to green, raising awareness on social media, volunteering and serving with veteran groups in their community, or starting a mentor/mentee relationship with a veteran. Walmart is committed to greenlighting veterans, including hiring 250,000 veterans by 2020 through Walmart’s Veterans Welcome Home Commitment. As part of this effort, Walmart recently greenlighted its 100,000th veteran hire. While a job is a vital piece of transitioning from military to civilian life for a veteran, it also takes a coordinated, multi-sector effort to create healthy transitions to civilian life. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have committed $20 million in grants to organizations that provide veteran job training, education and community-based collaboration.