After six years of giving gift cards to military members and their families, officials with Sears have decided to discontinue the Sears Heroes at Home gift card registry.
"Sears has long supported military families through many programs, including Heroes at Home," officials said in a statement posted to the company's website. "We have discontinued the Wish Registry program this year and will continue to support military families through other initiatives."
We reached out to company officials to get the scoop on just why they decided to do away with the program, which was run through cash donations from Sears shoppers. Officials declined to give any information, other than to repeat that they want to spend the money elsewhere.
"We've decided to redirect resources to other military support initiatives," said Brian Hanover, a Sears spokesman.
The gift card program raised $19 million in gift card donations and helped 100,000 since starting in 2008, officials said in the statement.
But the program was not without its problems, and wasn't known for bringing out the best in the military community. While many were simply grateful for the gift, servers crashing under the volume of people trying to register at the specified date and times resulted in some pretty ugly complaining.
Sears officials say the end of the gift card registry isn't the end of their outreach to veterans and their families. They said they have hired over 6,000 veteran and National Guard and Reservists in the last two years.
