What's Your Why? Volunteer Spotlight on Youth for Troops


What's Your Why? Volunteer Spotlight on Youth for Troops

The theme for 2022 is Find A Way to Serve, and Wreaths Across America shares inspiration from others as examples of how you can make a difference in your community and country.

If you need something to reinvigorate your patriotism and belief in our youth, you need to spend some time with Youth for Troops. The family-based, youth-led 501c3 organization celebrates five years of operation in April. The passion, pride, and desire to serve others emanate from the organization's founding members. Enthusiasm for their mission is palpable and contagious, and they have ways you can help them; in fact, they encourage it. The Youth for Troop's mission is to inspire patriotism in other youth and across generations by volunteering on behalf of the military and veterans through community service, advocacy, and education.

Tonya Piatt and Renee Hoffa are the proud and busy parents behind the Youth for Troop's mission and success. Every group member brings their strength and area of expertise to the organization, but they all agree Renee is the organized one. "We met through Girl Scouts, and we're both homeschool moms," Renee shared of the group's creation. "We've been friends for fifteen years."

Don't be fooled into thinking it's the parents who do all the work in this organization. The youngest of the group’s founders is sixteen-year-old Hannah Piatt, but she was twelve when Youth for Troops was started. "We've always had a passion for volunteering and serving the military and our veterans," Hannah explained. "We've volunteered for years with other groups, and they told us we have the passion for it and should just run with it, so we did."

Together, Hannah, Taylor, and Heather Piatt, along with Sophie, Walter, and Leo Hoffa, their parents, and other volunteers with Youth for Troops, have invested over thirty-three thousand volunteer service hours in support of our deployed U.S. troops and homeless veterans in Arizona. 

Youth for Troops brings volunteers of all ages together for care-package packing events, care-package card drives where people make, and design appreciation cards for the troops that will be placed in the care packages, and school or youth groups from all over the country can help decorate the care-package boxes used to ship the donated goodies. "We want all ages involved, and when you’re under sixteen, it can sometimes be hard to find a volunteer opportunity," Hannah explained. "Businesses and schools get involved with us by doing donation drives for items like socks, foot powder, or shampoo, and we put together care packages every month with the donated items. We send one food and one hygiene box to each deployed servicemember."

Taylor Piatt says it’s a lot of work running the nonprofit, but there are a lot of rewards too. "We owe them a great debt of gratitude for their service, so giving some of our time and effort is the least we can do to pay them back. Our care-package packing events are awesome when you can watch a Vietnam veteran next to a boy scout, and they’re packing together. We’ve found a way to have different people of all ages come together for one mission. I think one of the coolest things we get back from doing these care packages is letters from the deployed troops who received them. Sometimes they send us back things too, like cards and challenge coins. We got a folded flag that flew over a NATO building in Kabul, Afghanistan."

"It is fun," Heather shares. "I think as far as the rewards go, it’s impacted me in a couple of ways. The first is inspiring other people our age to realize that you can make a difference. Choose what you’re passionate about; we chose the military because it’s on our hearts, but say it’s animals, or the homeless, or whatever. You don’t have to wait to be an adult before you step up and do something. We encourage patriotism because we live in such an incredible country, and we want to honor those who protect our freedoms, and it’s a joy to do that."

Youth for Troops sponsors hands-on events every month, but you don’t need to be in Anthem, Arizona, to step up. The 501c3 has the expected operational expenses you would imagine, not the least of which are shipping costs and care-package content procurements when donations fall short.

You can hear more about Youth for Troops in our What’s Your Why feature on Wreaths Across America Radio.

Don’t be fooled into thinking it's the parents who do all the work in this organization. The youngest of the group's founders is sixteen-year-old Hannah Piatt, but she was twelve when Youth for Troops was started. "We've always had a passion for volunteering and serving the military and our veterans," Hannah explained. "We've volunteered for years with other groups, and they told us we have the passion for it and should just run with it, so we did."

Together, Hannah, Taylor, and Heather Piatt, along with Sophie, Walter, and Leo Hoffa, their parents, and other volunteers with Youth for Troops, have invested over thirty-three thousand volunteer service hours in support of our deployed U.S. troops and homeless veterans in Arizona.

 Youth for Troops brings volunteers of all ages together for care-package packing events, care-package card drives where people make, and design appreciation cards for the troops that will be placed in the care packages, and school or youth groups from all over the country can help decorate the care-package boxes used to ship the donated goodies. "We want all ages involved, and when you're under sixteen, it can sometimes be hard to find a volunteer opportunity," Hannah explained. "Businesses and schools get involved with us by doing donation drives for items like socks, foot powder, or shampoo, and we put together care packages every month with the donated items. We send one food and one hygiene box to each deployed servicemember."

Taylor Piatt says it’s a lot of work running the nonprofit, but there are a lot of rewards too. "We owe them a great debt of gratitude for their service, so giving some of our time and effort is the least we can do to pay them back. Our care-package packing events are awesome when you can watch a Vietnam veteran next to a boy scout, and they’re packing together. We’ve found a way to have different people of all ages come together for one mission. I think one of the coolest things we get back from doing these care packages is letters from the deployed troops who received them. Sometimes they send us back things too, like cards and challenge coins. We got a folded flag that flew over a NATO building in Kabul, Afghanistan."

"It is fun," Heather shares. "I think as far as the rewards go, it's impacted me in a couple of ways. The first is inspiring other people our age to realize that you can make a difference. Choose what you're passionate about; we chose the military because it's on our hearts, but say it's animals, or the homeless, or whatever. You don't have to wait to be an adult before you step up and do something. We encourage patriotism because we live in such an incredible country, and we want to honor those who protect our freedoms, and it's a joy to do that."

Youth for Troops sponsors hands-on events every month, but you don't need to be in Anthem, Arizona, to step up. The 501c3 has the expected operational expenses you would imagine, not the least of which are shipping costs and care-package content procurements when donations fall short.

You can hear more about Youth for Troops in our What's Your Why feature on Wreaths Across America Radio.