National Military Family Appreciation Month kicks off

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Sondra Escutia
  • 49th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  The Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force have announced July 2009 to July 2010 as the Year of the Air Force Family and the month of November is National Military Family Appreciation Month.

"Developing and caring for Airmen and their families remains one of our top priorities," said the honorable Michael Donely, SECAF, and Gen. Norton Schwartz, CSAF, in a memorandum. "We have a long and enviable history of meeting the needs of the Air Force Family through comprehensive Quality of Service initiatives."

To kick off the month of observation, the Airman and Family Readiness Center, along with other helping agencies at Holloman, have put together a series of events and classes for the week of Nov. 1 through 7, which has been deemed the Air Force Family week.

"The Year of the Air Force Family has two areas that it's focused on," said Shirley Bratton, Holloman YoAFF point of contact. "The primary focus is readiness -- taking care of our Airmen and their families in the readiness arena. The second part of that is taking care of the whole community, meaning Airmen, spouses, retirees, civilians, contractors and the list goes on and on."

To embrace the entire base populace, the week of the Air Force Family kicked off with an Art and Essay contest for Holloman youth, titled "My Air Force Family," and will continue on with events throughout the week. Information on the YoAFF will also be displayed at the Base Exchange, dining facility and the Airmen and Family Readiness Center. The week will end with a Military Family Appreciation Day on Saturday.

Ms. Bratton said that with today's high operations tempo, taking care of Airmen and their families is an important part in maintaining the Air Force mission.

"Families play a key role in mission readiness. It's not just the military member that is affected by deployments, it's the family also," she said. "You need to build community capacity and resilience in those folks so that they know where to turn to get assistance when that military member is gone."

The helping agencies on base continuously provide programs and events which are emphasized this week, month and year, but in truth, they support a goal that is never-ending: to take care of all of Team Holloman.

"It's not just this week. We want to emphasize the whole year," said Ms. Bratton. "And even though the Year of the Air Force Family ends July 2010, taking care of our Airmen will not end July 2010."

Headquarters Air Force has created a Web site in support of YoAFF with the theme, "The Air Force is a great place to LIVE, WORK, PLAY." The site is www.myairforcelife.com and is designed for the entire Air Force community.

A complete list of base events can be found on the Web site as well as on the Holloman Web site calendar at www.holloman.af.mil/events.

Events for Week of the Air Force Family 

- Nov. 2 through 13 -- Art and Essay contest "My Air Force Family" 
- Nov. 2, 8 to 10 a.m. -- "7 Habits of Highly Effective Military Families" at A&FRC 
- Nov. 3, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- Integrated Delivery Service information tables at BX
- Nov. 4, 10 to 10:45 a.m. -- "Military Family Read Time" at Ahren's Memorial Library 
- Nov. 4, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- A&FRC information tables at Shifting Sands Dining Facility
- Nov. 4, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- Community Education Meeting at A&FRC
- Nov. 5, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. -- Retiree Activity Day at A&FRC
- Nov. 7 -- Military Family Appreciation Day 
                  10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. -- Activity at Community Activity Center 
                  1 p.m. -- Free movie at Base Theater 
                  2 p.m. -- Teen Safe at Community Activity Center 
                  7 p.m. to 7 a.m. -- Co-ed Teen Lock in at Youth Center