Army Community Service staff and volunteers conducted a class Aug. 5 for a family readiness group that helped with community resiliency.
The "Recipe for Resiliency" class is based on the premise of creating a great product with the ingredients one is given and with the teammates one has. It is a bit Master Chef-meets-Army Family Team Building.
"The effort was basically a grass-roots way to provide support and resiliency skills to our community members," according to Julia Sibilla, ACS director. "It's the perfect example of meeting the changing needs of our community and helping to build strong Army families, one person and one family at a time."
This August class was conducted with nine spouses, and attendees made up three teams. It commenced with a short presentation on fun things to do in the local area, such as camminate (weekend walks in the area that are similar to Volksmarches in Germany), leather shopping and upcoming resiliency classes and events.
After a short overview of the event and its rules, Sibilla introduced Frannie Packard, a professional chef and Family Action Plan specialist. Packard talked about the importance of working together, collaborating, and planning so that creative and delicious "dishes" could be developed. This best explained the motto for the class: "Doing the best with what is in your kitchen and working well with those around you to create great things."
Each group received four core ingredients and one hour to create an appetizer and dessert for the group, Sibilla said. A table with more than 50 ingredients was set up on the other end of the room, and each group sent a representative one at a time to see what was there and take one item at a time to create their dishes. After 1 1/2 hours, the dishes were ready for judging. Three judges tasted them and then selected the dishes that were the most creative, tasty and beautiful.
The original concept of the class was created in 2014, Sibilla said. "A senior spouse contacted me to ask how she could generate teamwork among spouses and help them develop their leadership skills so they could mentor and help junior spouses. We conducted three "Recipe for Leadership" classes at that time to help develop and mentor her team."
"Recipe for Resiliency" was developed as an offshoot of that program when FRG leader Kristan Wilson contacted ACS to help spouses in her group be more resilient during their Soldier's deployment to Eastern Europe. Sibilla said Wilson was looking for creative ways to get them involved in positive activities during a potentially stressful time.
"Everyone had a great time at this most recent class," Sibilla added.
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