Gracious. Thankful. Appreciative.
Sears, a major retailer, with the help of outside donors, created a holiday gift card giveaway to active duty military personnel and their families. The online registration time for Heroes at Home was limited to a few hours on 31 Aug 2011.
There was a computer glitch. Some entries got in before the start time. There was a problem registering the birth month of August, among other site issues. People took to the Facebook page for the retailer and it got a bit negative.
Let’s keep this in perspective. This is a business which decided to make a non-need based gesture to the military community with the help of volunteer donors. Anyone who fit the basic criteria that they established could enter. It is to show the military gratitude, thankfulness, and appreciation for the fourth year in a row. Since donations start on 4 September, will the negative comments have an impact?
As of this writing there are over 2,000 posts on this retailer’s Facebook page with complaints about the program. From why it was just active-duty status, why not overseas members, rank, why did people get cards multiple times, and a host of other gripes.
A big hand to the military community who took the time to be positive about this gift in the same forum. Some people commented that they declined to register for their own reasons. Others acknowledged that the system didn’t accept their entry and they were fine with that, however they were still thankful and appreciative for those who will benefit from it.
The bottom line - This retailer simply didn’t have to do this for anyone.
photo by: metaphoricalplatypus
