Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 1-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, and their family members help repair the walking paths at Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, Wash., March 18, 2016. This was a project of the Tomahawk Volunteer Program, ...
Volunteers prepare and serve Easter Dinner to more than 200 local homeless men and women at the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen in Olympia, Wash., March 26, 2016. The volunteer were part of the Tomahawk Volunteer Program, a program that gives Soldiers op...
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - Soldiers can affect the lives of people at home and abroad. From giving meals to local soup kitchens in Washington, to providing dental care to children in the Philippines, Soldiers constantly demonstrate the core Army value of selfless service.
The passion to serve and help is a common trait among Soldiers. One officer in 1-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team found a way to use that trait to help the community as well as those in his formation.
"When I got to the unit we were trying to find something that would give the Soldiers the opportunity to do good things in the community on the weekend," said Capt. Curtis Cranston, the executive officer for Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. "I remember talking to the Soldiers and asking them what are they going to do tonight or tomorrow. I would always get the same answer: that there is not really much to do, which seemed like a very depressing answer to me.
"In my mind it was a simple answer to try to give opportunities to these guys to go do good things on the weekend- things that are fun and give back to the community," he said. "That's how the volunteer program got started, along with the help of all the supportive NCOs [Noncommissioned Officers]."
It originally started as a volunteer program for Cranston's platoon, then it grew to a volunteer program for Company C. When Cranston went to the HHC, the program extended to the battalion.
"Right now I am trying to extend it to other battalions within the brigade," he said.
Over the last two years the Tomahawk Volunteer Program has had more than 500 participants made up of Soldiers, family members and friends, said Cranston. As of now, the program has given back more than 3,500 hours of community service over the last two years.
"We do everything from volunteering at different shelters and food banks in the Olympia and Tacoma area, to adopting a highway right outside post and cleaning and repairing local parks and trails," said Cranston. "We try to do a little bit of everything to give Soldiers and families a chance to see what they like doing while giving back to the community that supports us so much."
During last year's Thanksgiving, the program worked with the 1-2 SBCT dining facility to transport 300 servings of leftovers to the local soup kitchens in Olympia. Companies in the battalion also conducted clothing and food drives during Christmas.
It is really inspiring to see Soldiers who want to do something good in the community and are doing that from the kindness of their heart and a desire to serve people, he said. That has been the biggest inspiration to continue the program: seeing the positive effects it has on the Soldiers.
"I guess it comes down to public service," said Cranston. "It's the same reason why I wanted to join the Army, the same reason I wanted to become an officer- it's the desire to serve something greater than myself.
"Those who joined the Army have some kind of public service bone in their body," he said. "They would not have joined the Army if they did not have the desire to serve others. I think that is the same kind of thing that we have here with our volunteer program: people want to serve and they want to do something that makes them feel like they are giving back to something that is bigger than themselves."
Soldiers feel the need to do that, especially now with fewer deployments, said Cranston. Soldiers are not getting the same feeling of directly giving back and directly doing their service for their country. Volunteering allows them to have that feeling of giving back to the country and to community.
"We invite everyone to join us," said Cranston. "We do have events that cater better to family volunteers. We even have other units come out with us too. The challenge for us now is to cement this into something really lasting and extend onto the other battalions and other brigades."
If you are in the JBLM area and want to know more about the Tomahawk Volunteer Program, please visit their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/TomahawkVolunteerProgram/
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