8-year-old’s heartwarming mission: spreading holiday cheer to veterans with Christmas cards

HAMPSTEAD, NC (WWAY) — According to Hallmark, more than 1.3 billion Christmas cards are delivered throughout the US every year.

One young man is making it his goal to ensure those who served our country get a special thank you during the holidays.

8-year-old Tucker Rose is holding his 4th annual Salute to Veterans Christmas Card Drive.

Tucker began his drive as a way to give back to his community and to develop an appreciation of civic duty while being home-schooled.

“He’s always written letters to people and this was kind of an extension of that,” Tucker’s father Daniel said. “You know, alright, now you’ve written letters, let’s see if we can get some other people to do the same thing.”

Since starting in 2019, Tucker has collected and handed out more than 6,000 holiday cards.

Every year, students from Dixon Elementary School in Onslow County help by making cards. And with Tucker’s goal this year being to collect 2,500 cards, the students at Dixon came through, by making more than 600 of them.

Tucker and his family will divide the cards in bundles of 25 and hand them out on Christmas Day to veterans staying at the North Carolina State Veterans Home in Kinston.

“We wanted to start cause we knew that veterans wouldn’t really get anything cause it was during COVID and so they, we knew that their family couldn’t like come and see them so they wouldn’t really get to be that happy,” Tucker said.

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis has participated in the drive every year, as have several professional baseball teams, including the Braves, Dodgers, Giants, and Padres.

Rose said its amazing to receive so many cards every year.

“Always invest your time, invest that effort,” Rose said. “You know, how long does it take for you to sit down and write a Christmas card? But, for an 8-year-old, receiving that means so more than you may have ever intended in writing it and so you never know the impact you’re going to make, which is what he tries to do in everything is encourage positivity.”

If you would like to send any cards to Tucker, you can drop them off at boxes located at the Harley Davidson dealerships in Shallotte, Wilmington, and Jacksonville or at Saigon Sam’s Military Surplus in Jacksonville. Dropoff ends on Saturday, December 23rd.