R. Kelly To Host Thanksgiving Feast For U.S. Troops

November 25, 2009 10:35 a.m. EST

Washington, DC (CNS) - R&B star R. Kelly is set to host a special Thanksgiving dinner to support the country's men and women in uniform. The Grammy Award-winning artist will be joining 200 soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other U.S. Army facilities in a feast on Wednesday evening.

The dinner will be held at Washington's Constitution Hall, where Kelly will perform later in the evening as part of his "Ladies Make Some Noise!" tour. After the feast, the troops will attend the concert as his guests.

He said, "There's nothing worse than being away from your loved ones at the holidays. This is my way of saying thank you to all the brave men and women who have given up so much in order to protect us. It's their sacrifices that allow us to sleep comfortably at night and send our children off to school in the morning."

Kelly's 2003 single "Soldier's Heart" became an unofficial anthem of support for the soldiers deployed to Iraq. He donated proceeds from that song to charities supporting the families of soldiers, such as Army Emergency Relief.

He also did a free concert for 10,000 troops in Texas that was also broadcast via satellite to troops in Iraq later that year.

Kelly will release his tenth studio album, "Untitled," on December 1 through Jive Records.