PHOTOS:  Community Monday - VA Hospital Visit

The Colts are honoring frontline heroes during Fan Appreciation week. We celebrate our hometown heroes as we head into our final home game of the season.

Owner & CEO Jim Irsay surprised a group of Colts fans with a trip to New York for the team's New Year's Day matchup with the Giants. The trip included air travel on the Irsay private jet, hotel accommodations, meals, ground transportation, and tickets to the game.

The Indianapolis Colts and Versiti Blood Center of Indiana hosted the 23rd Annual Bleed Blue Blood Drive and Holiday Fest at Lucas Oil Stadium. This year's event was the largest single-day blood drive in the state and featured games, on-field activities, and a 365-photo booth for families as well as appearances by Colts mascot Blue and the Colts Cheerleaders.

My Cause, My Cleats celebrates the positive impact that players make in their communities by providing them with a unique opportunity to highlight the charitable partners that they are passionate about on their cleats. On December 4 at the Dallas Cowboys, 58 members of the Colts organization, including players, interim head coach Jeff Saturday, General Manager Chris Ballard, and the Irsay family will sport custom-designed cleats.

The Indianapolis Colts, US Foods, Citizens Energy Group, Hensley Legal Group, Lucas Oil Products, Meijer, and UPS teamed up to distribute Thanksgiving meals to 2,000 Indianapolis families in need. Colts players, Cheerleaders, and local volunteers helped pack and distribute food through both drive-thru and walk-up stations at Lucas Oil Stadium.

As a part of CrucialCatch, the Indianapolis Colts joined with A Kid Again Indiana and Ashley HomeStore to host the Colts Heroes Fashion Show, supporting young people battling cancer and life-threatening illnesses. Colts players, Cheerleaders, and team mascot "Blue" were all on hand in costumes to walk the runway alongside more than 20 costumed kids from A Kid Again - a national organization with a mission to foster hope, happiness, and healing for children with life-threatening health conditions and their families.

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, the Indianapolis Colts hosted a book fair to provide local students with free books and to stress the importance of education and reading. This year's book fair brought in over 600 books donated to Ernie Pyle Elementary and the day concluded with punter Rigoberto Sanchez reading to and sharing heritage with students at the IPS elementary school.

Colts hosted the inaugural Unified Flag Classic, a joint event in efforts between the Colts, Special Olympics Indiana, and the Indiana High School Athletic Association, that invited student-athletes with and without disabilities to participate together in flag football games.

The Indianapolis Colts hosted a Hispanic Heritage Football Camp for over 175 students, grades 2-6, at Ernie Pyle Elementary School #90 in Indianapolis. The students took part in an interactive program aimed to introduce kids to the game of football while also teaching non-contact football skills such as catching and throwing.

More than 150 volunteers from the Indianapolis Colts and local partners joined together for the 14th Annual Playground Build to construct a new play space at Deer Run Elementary School in Indianapolis.

Beyond The Sidelines is the first in-person fundraiser event to benefit Kicking The Stigma, the Indianapolis Colts, and Irsay family initiative to raise awareness about mental health disorders and remove the shame and stigma associated with these illnesses. Through the Beyond The Sidelines Event, the Irsay Family looks to grow Kicking The Stigma's impact on mental health awareness and treatment.

Funds raised go toward the Kicking The Stigma Action Grants, which support non-profits and organizations that raise awareness about mental health or provide mental health treatment services.

The Indianapolis Colts partnered with American Family Insurance to participate in the Colts 'School Uniform Blitz'. The experience provides students in temporary housing or shelters, experiencing economic hardship or a similar situation, a school uniform package as a means to help eliminate clothing as a barrier to getting to and staying in school. The event also includes a book fair for students, where they are given an opportunity to pick two Scholastic books, free of charge.