US Army, US Navy, US Airforce, USMC and now US Coast Guard!
Each year Operation:H.O.M.E., seeks all open doors to help our US Service members. 2023 found a new door. A former Chaplain in the US Navy was restationed from Hawaii to the east coast and moved over to the US Coast Guard. He called and asked if we could help members of the USCG.
Just as the other four members of our armed forces, the USCG re-stations and transfers individuals all around the country. One of the Guardsman I spoke to in year 2023 was born in Texas, moved with his parents to NC., and was stationed at one point in Florida. He is currently stationed in Massachusetts. He had not been home in 5 years. When I interviewed Guardsman Baker, I posed the question; “Why have you not been home in 5 years?” His response is quite common amongst military service members…”Each year when the time comes to try a go home for Thanksgiving or CHRISTmas I look at the cost and wonder if I can really afford to go home.” He continued… ”besides each year if I knew someone who could afford to get home but, may not have a scheduled leave, I would volunteer to cover their workload so they could go home.” The donors of Operation:H.O.M.E. did it once again when they funded a trip home for Baker as I told him “This is YOUR year! Put in for YOUR leave. “
OPERATION:H.O.M.E. was founded to serve and assist military service members who are single, have no-one to spend their Thanksgiving or CHRISTmas with and cannot afford to get home for the Holidays. Our mission has expanded to meet request around the year to meet needs that range from family emergencies, high-school graduations when a military parent is deployed and cannot afford to travel back home for the event, to first time parents getting home from deployment to see their first child’s birth. In each of these events it has been SINGLE members needing help. During the 2023 Holiday season OPERATION:H.O.M.E. received nine requests for assistance, from military members who are married with children but had not seen the parents or siblings of the service members for 2-5 years. We always honor our commitment to OPERATION:H.O.M.E. donors to use our funding ONLY to help those who are single…to stay within the guidelines by which we raise our donations. Therefore, we declined these requests.
HOWEVER, 2023 brought an unbelievable development. AQUARIAN HOLDINGS contacted OPERATION:H.O.M.E. wanting to know if there was any special need they could help to underwrite. After hearing the request of those military families AQUARIAN HOLDINGS wrote a check and asked us to “Earmark” the monies to help those families. We did and OPERATION:H.O.M.E. was able to arrange the flights to get grandchildren home to meet grandparents, service members home to see family they had not seen in 5 years, and in one instance two service members who were married but neither one had ever met their in-laws.