The Y-Club at Piedmont Academy collected handwritten letters for the troops to open on Thanksgiving as a part of The Bert Show's Big Thank You. Every year, the Bert Show, a radio show out of Atlanta, collects handwritten thank you letters for every single service member who is deployed; the service members then get to open the letters on Thanksgiving.

"These letters hugely impact the morale of our troops who are unable to be home with their families for the holidays," said Judy Nelson, the school's director of admissions.

This year, four students in second grade received a letter back. One soldier told the students about his career in the Navy and about his specific job in Afghanistan. He told them about his family and answered some questions. Most importantly, the students were thanked for the friendly letters that made the soldiers' time away from home easier.

Students who received letters in Tara Pope's second-grade classroom included Dylan Pitts, Savannah Stanton, Dalton Wallace and Emily McEwen.