Dugout Mugs® Honoring the Fallen with Folds of Honor!

September 26, 2022

Dugout Mugs is proud to announce Folds of Honor as our latest Cheers to Charity recipient. Since 2007, Folds of Honor has carried forth a singular, noble mission, "to provide educational scholarships to spouses and children of America's fallen and disabled service members." Their motto says it best, "Honor Their Sacrifice."

At Dugout Mugs, we celebrate and serve the heroes of the baseball community by creating uniquely fun gifts. However, we decided to go a little outside of that and celebrate the heroes of the community and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice by raising money and awareness through our custom limited edition Folds of Honor collection.

"When we had the opportunity to collaborate with this great organization we did not hesitate, just as the brave men and women did not hesitate to put themselves in harm's way," said Dugout Mugs CEO and Co-Founder Kris Dehnert. "To have the chance to support and celebrate their honor by raising money through our Cheers to Charity initiative, we couldn't be more grateful."

The collection will include our classic wooden engraved Dugout Mug, our Inked series, as well as shot glasses, Season Opener bottle opener, and more with the iconic Folds of Honor logo. In addition, this will be the first Cheers to Charity initiative that will run year-round.

"We're going to let it keep running so that the people in the Folds of Honor community, the regional impact officers, the ones doing the golf tournaments, the galas, and everything, are going to have access to these products year-round," said Dugout Mugs CEO & Co-Founder Kris Dehnert. "We will also have hand-painted mugs by a veteran artist that we are going to auction off and give the proceeds directly to Folds of Honor."

SEE THE FOLDS OF HONOR COLLECTION HERE

All of the money will go directly toward giving academic scholarships to children and spouses of service men and women who have been disabled or killed in action.

"Since the day Colonel Dan Rooney and his wife Jacqy founded Folds of Honor in 2007, we've awarded nearly 44,000 life-changing scholarships, and given away, not including this fall, over $200 million to these most deserving military families," explained Folds of Honor Vice President, Ben Leslie.

Even in 14 years of giving thousands of scholarships, Leslie says the organization is scaling more than ever and continues to grow, and impact families.

"Over the last five or six years, we have had unbelievable partners like Dugout Mugs," Leslie added. "You may see our logo on Budweiser beer cans, Winn Dixie grocery stores, and Patriot Golf Days. The money we raise at golf facilities stays in the communities in which it is given."

As the new school year kicks off, Leslie can see time flying before his eyes as the latest scholarship recipients are starting school and sharing their back-to-school pictures.

"We see pictures with their mom, or some kids holding a picture of their father because he was killed in action and is not able to experience this with them, but they send us those pictures because they are going to school on a Folds of Honor scholarship," he said. This year we had 9,000 recipients coming from every state in the U.S."

To play a small role, in what Leslie and the rest of the Folds of Honor stand for, deeply impacts all of us in the Dugout.

"What you are doing at Dugout Mug is providing hope and healing," Leslie noted. "The community is, the people who buy these items, they are going to have a way to support these military families when they buy something that has our logo on it because it's going to go back and we are going to put it directly into our scholarship program. So, there is a little bit of hope and a little bit of healing with every purchase you make."

If you would like to watch the entire INTERVIEW VIDEO with Folds of Honor Chief Impact Office Ben Leslie, you can find it below.