In honor of those serving in the military, we invited Christina Jumper of the National Military Family Association to join in Summer of Service. Today, Christina shares accessible resources and simple actions helping us all to show support for military families. Thanks Christina!
How Does Your Community Support Military Families?
By Christina Jumper, National Military Family Association
So, you want to support military families but you don’t know where to start, think it’s too expensive or complicated, or even time consuming? Well, we have a simple, easy answer for you!
Finding Common Ground: A Toolkit for Communities Supporting Military Families is a new resource from the National Military Family Association. This toolkit is the product of our Association's summit, "When Parents Deploy: Understanding the Experiences of Military Children and Spouses," at which we gathered the leading experts in the fields of military family support, childhood development, women's issues, and behavioral health.
This toolkit suggests easily-achievable action items and useful resources to guide anyone who wants to support military families, but doesn’t know where to start. This toolkit provides an answer to the question “What can I do to help?”
Using and sharing the information in this toolkit is easy. First, log on to MilitaryFamily.org, identify yourself in one of the communities, and read about ideas and resources that can start conversations and stimulate action. Then, take some time to explore the other toolkit links. Print pages of the toolkit or use your online social networks to share the information with your friends.
Supporting military families doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. The toolkit provides examples of how easy it is to help military families – from having coffee with a service member’s parent to youth organizations looking for ways to include military families as part of the curriculum.
Share how you’re supporting military families in your community! Send us an email at [email protected]. We are capturing these great ideas to build a list for communities to share. Every community is reaching out and they are doing it in unique and special ways. Now it’s your turn to see where you fit in! Join us today at www.MilitaryFamily.org/Community.
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Christina is the Volunteer Services Director of the National Military Family Associaiton. She is responsible for recruiting, training, and supporting the Association’s worldwide network of more than 200 Volunteers and Representatives. In 2003, Christina was a recipient of the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal in recognition of her volunteer work for soldiers and their families. Christina has been a military family member since 1989 and currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia. Continue the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.
Keep Up With the Summer of Service Series!
- Small Actions, Big Impact by Nate St. Pierre
