Originally published on PSEG ENERGIZE!

Last month, 17 volunteers from the PSEG Employee Business Resource Group the PSEG VETS helped to assemble care packages for American troops overseas at an event hosted by Prudential Veterans Initiatives and Operation Gratitude at the Prudential Center.

Our PSEG employees showed their support along with employees from Verizon, Mars Candy Company and Prudential. The goal was to assemble care packages for troops currently deployed in Eastern Europe. Each package included an assortment of sweet and salty snacks, personal care items and handmade pieces such as paracord bracelets, handwritten letters and knitted items made by volunteers nationwide.

Thanks to all of the day’s volunteers, more than 1,000 packages were prepared – resulting in the most care packages Operation Gratitude has ever assembled in a single day.

After the event, PSE&G Line Worker Benjamin Oakes said, “I was so happy to be able to be a part of this event with my daughter, Lauren. My daughter is leaving for the air force this summer and my son-in-law currently serves with the 101st airborne. It’s great to see so many people and our company show our support for all of our service members.”

Oakes’ daughter, Lauren, also was present and agreed, “It was an honor to be giving back to our troops. Making them aware that we are thinking of them and do care about them is a very special and amazing thing.”

“Our military makes incredible sacrifices to ensure our freedom and safety. It was an honor to join the PSEG Vets and other corporate groups in packing the large volume of donated items and personal ‘thank you’s’ for distribution to our troops,” said Peggy Keane, Managing Director and Vice President of Construction and Operations at PSEG Long Island.

“It was a privilege to work shoulder to shoulder with PSEG’s great volunteers during the recent assembly event in Newark, New Jersey, honoring our country’s service members,” said General Major James Johnson, President and CEO of Operation Gratitude. “PSEG’s outstanding hands-on commitment to honoring those who serve directly contributed to 1,000 of our deployed service members receiving a care package from grateful grassroots Americans and corporate partners. We are on our way to achieving the vision, ‘That all who serve will believe the American people care about their service.’ We’re looking forward to partnering with PSEG again very soon and hope others also will #JoinUsOnTheJourney of saying thank you to all who serve.”

If you wish to learn more about Operation Gratitude, please visit their website at https://www.operationgratitude.com/.

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Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG)

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG)

Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) (NYSE: PEG) is a publicly traded diversified energy company with approximately 13,000 employees. Headquartered in Newark, N.J., PSEG's principal operating subsidiaries are: Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G), PSEG Power and PSEG Long Island. PSEG is a Fortune 500 company included in the S&P 500 Index and has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for North America for 11 consecutive years (https://corporate.pseg.com/).

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