Todd Gurley helps surprise Atlanta military family with transitional housing

Rise Up Tonight - Rise Up For ATL with Todd Gurley

Rise Up For Atlanta features Todd Gurley and his partnership with Operation Homefront helping a veteran transiting out of the military with housing.

ATLANTA - Atlanta Falcons running back Todd Gurley partered with Pillsbury and the nonprofit Operation Homefront to give "home for the holidays" a new meaning to a military family from Atlanta.

Trevor and Brittany Allison met in Atlanta and their families are still in the metro area. But for the last seven years, the couple and their 5-year-old son Cohen have lived in Idaho, where Staff Sergeant Trevor Allison has served as an Air Force Aircraft Mechanic, including two deployments.

Pillsbury partnered with nonprofit Operation Homefront to provide "The Welcome Home," a rent-free, Atlanta-based transitional home for military families, starting with the Allison family. Gurley was enlisted to help welcome the family to the neighborhood and their new rent-free home ahead of Veteran's Day.

"It’s huge. We don’t really get to spend a whole lot of time with family," Trevor told FOX 5. "So just being home for the holidays and for Cohen to be around his grandparents and the rest of his family is pretty awesome."

The Allisons are Falcons fans, and Trevor said he can't wait to go to another game again soon.

"We always pulled for the Falcons when we lived in Georgia. We’d always try to catch a game when we could," he said. "Love going to games. Yeah, so we’re super excited to get back."

So having Gurley there to provide a warm welcome meant even more.

"It was awesome. I felt totally comfortable," Brittany said. "He’s such a nice and genuine person. It was nice getting to know him."

(Pillsbury/Operation Homefront)

"Just like me coming back to Georgia as like a homecoming (this offseason), I wanted to do the same thing for the military families, being able to help transition back into regular civilian life, be able to get them into a rent-free home and just be able to go back home and have a place that you can call home, especially right now during the pandemic, during the holidays," Gurley told FOX 5.

Gurley, Brittany and Cohen even shared freshly-baked cookies in the family's new kitchen.

"It’s definitely a story we can tell our friends and family, that we ate cookies with Todd Gurley," Brittany said, laughing.

"I was jealous. I want to eat cookies with Todd Gurley," Trevor joked.

And they'll be able to tell that story with loved ones often. The rent-free transitional home will enable the Allisons to have their family and a support system nearby.

Pillsbury’s "The Welcome Home" will be part of Operation Homefront’s Transitional Homes for Community Reintegration program. Through this program, the family will be assigned a designated caseworker and financial counselor who will work with them to create realistic financial, educational, employment and personal goal plans. They will also gain knowledge on the home buying process, work to improve credit scores, pay off debt, accumulate emergency savings, and establish ties to the community they reside in.