4 ways Amazon honored fallen service members this Memorial Day

Since 2021, we have worked with wear blue: run to remember, which honors the service and sacrifice of the U.S. military through active remembrance. We are the presenting sponsor of the organization’s Gold Star Youth Mentorship Program and an active participant in their annual runs to honor fallen service members.

This year, Amazon sponsored an event on May 25 in Washington, D.C., with the White House to honor all of the Gold Star families supported by the organization. The event included a Circle of Remembrance featuring the images of fallen service members, followed by a self-paced walk/run and a donation of organic goods from Amazon Fresh to all participants.

On Memorial Day, Amazon employees supported Gold Star children from the program in DuPont, Washington. The children completed a 5k run alongside their mentors, with flags representing their fallen parents.

Through a partnership with the Gary Sinise Foundation, a veteran’s service organization, we are the presenting sponsor for their Snowball Express Program, which is dedicated to serving military families of fallen heroes through annual programming and support.

We volunteered at multiple events leading up to and on Memorial Day, including the organization’s Invincible Spirit Festival on Fort Belvoir, where celebrity chef Robert Irvine provided food for attendees, and Gary Sinise and the Lieutenant Dan Band performed to support wounded service members and medical caretakers. Amazon also supported families as they visited the Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and other sites and events around Washington, D.C., including the National Memorial Day Parade.

We worked with Vetoga Nation, a nonprofit organization that helps veterans release trauma through yoga and meditation after serving, to sponsor their Mental Health Yoga Challenge, which raised awareness to mental health in the military community through a 14-day yoga challenge leading up to Memorial Day. People within the military community embarked on this challenge all over the country, which consisted of daily exercises and activities for them to use in their everyday routines, each lasting 5 to 15 minutes. Each day of the challenge included one or more of the following: yoga, meditation, journaling, breathing techniques, and mental health resources.

Joe Merritt is a veteran, artist, and co-founder of Community Building Artworks, which connects veterans, health care providers, and civilians through workshops led by professional artists. On May 24, Merritt held a virtual workshop sponsored by Amazon on creative expression for veterans and civilians through combining two mediums: art and poetry. The event began with a writing exercise to demonstrate the ways visual art can convey moods and stories from poetry for over 100 attendees.