Staff members crowded shoulder to shoulder Friday afternoon, each eager to wield the saber cutting ACS's 50th-birthday cake. The result was a bit of happy mayhem -- and one thoroughly sliced cake.
Army Community Service has 34 staff on Fort Jackson, up from seven when it was founded by the Department of the Army in 1965. And all, said Director Madelyn Mercado, were "here today because we love families, we love Soldiers."
As their collective enthusiasm showed, they also love singing, cake and party whistles.
During the celebration, Mercado recognized Cheryl Jackson Leysath, who has worked for Fort Jackson ACS since April 1979.
Leysath now manages the Exceptional Family Member Program, but she figures she has occupied almost every other position at ACS except director -- and she says she doesn't want that one.
"Every single day," Mercado said, "people (who have been served) come back and ask, 'Is Ms. Jackson still here?'"
Leysath's tenure, she said, "takes a lot of love, a lot of dedication but -- most of all -- a lot of passion."
Both women said during an earlier interview that what had kept them working at ACS was knowing that they had helped families make the most of military life.
Leysath left college thinking she wanted to manage a large company but found a job at ACS and never left.
"I fell in love with ACS and the services," she said.
She was at ACS when it was computerized -- she held on to her typewriter for the longest time before succumbing to using another kind of keyboard.
She traveled the state, working with Families whose Soldiers were deploying for Desert Storm.
And she was at ACS in 1995, when the program she now manages was founded.
"It has its biggest reward when you look at the Families that you service … all over the world" because they once were at Fort Jackson and have moved on.
"Through their eyes," Leysath said, "I have traveled all over the world … and never been anywhere but right here."
Mercado came to ACS as a military spouse, a common entry point for many staff members. Left alone at home on a base in Germany with a 2-year-old child, Mercado said, she knew she had to find more to do with her days.
So, she volunteered to work for the same agency of which she now is a director.
"ACS opened the doors," Mercado said, "and here I am, 23 years later."
Both women have seen the agency evolve through many of its 50 years.
What began as a grassroots volunteer network in which Army wives helped needy families has become a broad, social-services organization. ACS helps military spouses learn English and find jobs, educates Soldiers on keeping their finances healthy and promotes artistic creativity in Soldiers' Families.
Still, the women said, many people think of ACS only as a place to get solutions to a problem.
"You don't know what you don't know," Mercado said. "If you're sort of OK (and) you don't have financial problems, there's no domestic violence … you don't know about us, which is sad.
"There is a perception that you come to ACS because you have problems. (But) you don't have to be in trouble.
"It offers a lot of opportunities (to build) Army Strong Families."
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