Become a Part of Our Volunteer Reserves

Make an Impact Through Volunteering at Our Events 

By joining the Volunteer Reserves, you can support families throughout the year at some of our most impactful events, including: 

• Back-to-School Brigade® – Providing school supplies to military children 

• Holiday Meals for Military® – Ensuring families can gather around the table during the holidays 

• Star-Spangled Babies® – Celebrating and supporting new and expecting military parents 

These events provide essential support to families who serve our nation every day. 

Volunteer as a Pickup Collection Volunteer and help ensure donated items reach the military families who need them most. Volunteers coordinate and pick up donated school supplies, toys, and other items from participating Dollar Tree locations and help transport them to local distribution sites. 

Your time and effort directly support military children and families in your community. 

When Volunteers Are Needed Most 

Our greatest volunteer needs occur during two key periods each year: 

• June – August 

• October – December 

During these months, Volunteer Reserve members play a critical role in helping us serve thousands of families at events across the country. 

Be Part of the Mission 

Join the Volunteer Reserves today and help us serve those who serve our nation!  Please click here to create a volunteer reserves account or to log into your existing volunteer account. 

If you have any questions, please email us at  volunteer@operationhomefront.org. 

As part of this program, corporations are also able to partner with us to support military families in a larger capacity.  

Meet Our 2025 Volunteer of the Year

 Katie Squires: National Volunteer of the Year 

Katie Squires has been a huge support not only for Region 6, but also for Operation Homefront’s national team and programs, consistently stepping in to handle work that further grows our impact. 

This year, Katie managed more than 50 Seasons of Service (SOS) nominations through our annual partnership with Boot Campaign. For Region 6, specifically, Katie played a direct role in ensuring that we could support more than double the number of nominations (five families) throughout AZ, CA, and HI. This included helping provide extra holiday support to an O‘ahu family experiencing their first holiday season after losing the servicemember father; a family forced to spend the holidays in California while their daughter received emergency medical care for an ongoing health issue; a servicemember and her two children who escaped spousal abuse; a family caring for a young child who experiences seizures; and a Volunteer Team Captain dealing with financial and medical challenges while also caring for an elderly parent. Katie’s collaboration and coordination helped ensure these families received support when they needed it most. 

Katie also supported our 2025 Back-to-School Brigade® and Holiday Meals for Military® Dollar Tree campaigns by reconnecting with prior volunteers and helping fill thousands of stores. She personally picked up and distributed donations from two Dollar Tree locations in Yorba Linda, California area for both campaigns which benefited our Southern California programs in Los Angeles and San Diego. In addition, she transported collected Dollar Tree supplies to Las Vegas to support our Back-to-School Brigade®, helping ensure we had the additional supplies needed to serve more military and veteran families. 

Katie also represented Operation Homefront at a Volunteer Lunch and Learn hosted by KIA, where she collected 89 gratitude cards from employees. Those cards were later used for the KIA Star-Spangled Babies® event supporting families in and around the Los Angeles Air Force Base area. Additionally, Katie and her husband, Thomas, helped coordinate the event’s catering and supported setup and breakdown for the baby shower. 

On the administrative side, Katie regularly creates Region 6 events in Digital Cheetah and is always readily available to input volunteer hours as needed. When our regional team’s workload is excessive, Katie is consistently willing to step in. With the estimated national value of a volunteer hour at nearly $35.00, she has contributed tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of volunteer hours to our organization. 

Katie’s drive for our mission and her willingness to help wherever needed have made a significant impact not only across Region 6, but for military and veteran families nationwide. She is more than deserving of this nomination for Operation Homefront’s Volunteer of the Year.