veterans day

Veterans Day Freebies 2015

November 10, 2015 by Tara Kuczykowski Leave a Comment

photo via Kim Hill

Veterans Day Freebies

From haircuts to oil changes and movies to meals, I’ve rounded up some of the best Veterans Day freebies for veterans and, in most cases, active duty military personnel. Please share them with your favorite veteran, and be sure to thank these companies for their generosity and support!

Applebee’s – free meal (choose from 6 options)

Bob Evans — free breakfast all day

Buffalo Wild Wings — free small wings and a side of fries from 4-7 p.m.

Carraba’s — free appetizer

Chili’s — free entrée (choose from 8 options)

Denny’s – build your own Grand Slam breakfast from 5 a.m. until noon

Golden Corral — free meal from 5-9 p.m.

Great Clips Salon — free haircut or free haircut card that expires 12/31/15

IHOP – free pancakes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Little Caesar’s Pizza — free pizza or $5 HOT-N-READY Lunch Combo

Longhorn Steakhouse — free Texas Tonion and non-alcoholic beverage

Marcus Theatres — free admission to “The Martian” and a free popcorn for veterans and active military personnel.

Meineke — free oil change

National Parks — free entry to all National Parks

Olive Garden – free entrée, 10% off family members dining with them

Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt — one free cup of froyo, up to 11 ounces, at participating locations

Outback Steakhouse – free Bloomin’ Onion and beverage

Red Lobster — active duty military, actively serving, reserve and military veterans can enjoy a no purchase necessary free appetizer or dessert.

Red Robin — free Red’s Tavern Double burger with Bottomless Steak Fries

Shoney’s — free All-American Burger

Spaghetti Warehouse — B1G1 entrées with coupon.

Starbucks — free tall 12 oz brewed hot coffee

Texas Roadhouse – free lunch (choose from one of 10 entrées and beverage)

T.G.I. Friday’s — free lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If you’ve seen any other offers worth sharing, please let me know and I’ll get them added to the list!

Supporting America’s Veterans All Year Long #GreenlightAVet

November 10, 2015 by Tara Kuczykowski Leave a Comment

As you probably know, tomorrow is Veterans Day. I’m a firm believer that our military veterans deserve our appreciation all year long, but I’m grateful for the additional recognition that this day brings.

Every veteran has a story, and we make sure to share our family’s stories with our kids regularly in the hopes that they will pass them down to their children. Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II, with one earning a purple heart after nearly being crushed by a tank in Germany. My husband’s grandmother was in the Navy, and his father was in the Air Force. And I’m so proud of my cousin who was just accepted into the Navy’s nuclear engineering officer program — wow!!!

And these are just a few members from among the many branches of our family tree. I’m sure there are more uncles, aunts, and cousins that I’m not even aware of, you know? Because once they’re no longer on active duty and put away their uniforms, they just start to blend in with the crowd…

GreenLight A Vet

Which kind of makes you start to wonder how many service members we see each day that just blend into the crowd. Right? So I love this program that Walmart is supporting called GreenLight A Vet. The program encourages Americans to establish visible daily support for our veterans by changing one light in a visible location to green, a color symbolizing hope, renewal and well-being.

Thousands of everyday Americans have already shared their support for the Greenlight A Vet movement on social media — and you can, too! At the very least, you can simply use the hashtag #GreenlightAVet on your favorite platform. But if you have a chance to pick up a green light bulb at your local Walmart, please do so and share a photo, as well!

P.S. Be sure to share this BIG list of Veterans Day freebies with your favorite vet!

Walmart Moms Disclosure

Thank a Veteran Today on the Walmart Wall of Honor

November 11, 2014 by Tara Kuczykowski Leave a Comment

Do you have a veteran you’d like to thank today? Last year, Walmart created an online Wall of Honor to support and share about the veterans in their lives. They’ve continued the Wall of Honor this year, and it is now the largest virtual community of its kind!

If you’d like to thank a veteran today, Walmart has made posting photos, videos or text to honor your favorite veteran really easy. Simply tag Facebook, Twitter or Instagram posts with the hashtag #WallofHonor and it will automatically aggregate on the site: walmart.com/wallofhonor.

But don’t worry if you don’t have one of these social media accounts! You can also navigate directly to the Wall of Honor site and upload a photo or submit text directly. There’s no need to create an account or jump through any hoops!

If you haven’t heard about Walmart’s Welcome Home Commitment, it’s a great complement to the Wall of Honor. Walmart will hire any honorably discharged veteran who wants a job with them in his or her first 12 months off active duty. In addition, they’ve stated that they intend to hire 100,000 veterans by 2018. That’s a pretty amazing number, isn’t it?

But even more amazing is that, in the past year since this initiative was announced on Memorial Day of 2013, Walmart has already hired 67,000+ veterans, putting them on the path to reaching that target number in 2015! And in addition, over 5,000 of those veterans that have been hired have already been promoted to higher positions.

Keep in mind that Walmart isn’t just about being a retail associate! They’re offering positions in transportation, logistics, management and more, so if you know a qualified veteran who’s searching for a position with long-term potential, please point them to the Careers With A Mission page and follow on Twitter @WalmartVeterans.

Have you thanked your favorite veteran for Veterans Day today?

Walmart Moms Disclosure