Fort Knox and area community leaders signed a memorandum of understanding during a community partnership meeting Tuesday at Fort Knox's Camp Carlson that formalized a collective commitment to bolster support of one another's leisure/well-being activities through publicity efforts as well as coordinated and complementary event scheduling.
Randy Moore, the director of Fort Knox's Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation, said the MOU was signed as a community partnership agreement with several municipal county, city, parks, recreation programs and other associations in the leisure and travel business to provide an opportunity to collaborate together.
"The partnership provides for an opportunity for us to deconflict calendars, promote what others are doing and promote what we can do collectively and together, and where the opportunity exists to even conduct events together," explained Moore.
Moore pointed out the partnership will help FMWR's customers because there are Soldiers and Family members who live on the installation and they may want to participate in events in the surrounding communities.
"(They) may want to participate in something outside of Fort Knox we don't currently offer," he said. "Something comes to mind is like a true famers market. We don't do something like that with a true MWR on the installation, but a number of the municipalities do, and we are currently promoting things like that.
"We need to try and get that word out to our customers here on Fort Knox so they can go somewhere readily into the community to have that kind of experience, and the same thing vice versa. We now have the opportunity to bring people on the installation, properly vetted of course, and they get a year pass to participate in those kinds of programs."
Moore added that in the past, FMWR and off-post entities would pick up the phone and call to see what was happening in the communities. But with the partnership they will meet monthly to know what others are doing in the next six to 12 months to make sure there aren't any conflicts.
"In some cases we are going to conflict and that's OK," he said. "Knowing that is half the battle, and we will be able to help each other in that kind of communication and collaboration."
Moore said Fort Knox hasn't done anything like this but there have been other partnerships and FMWR has assisted the city of Radcliff and other folks in the past with on-post resources.
Kelly Barron of the Radcliff and Fort Knox Tourism Commission said the most important piece of the partnership is the communication and sharing of information.
"We are sharing resources (and) that's the biggest thing I take out of this group," she said. "With this partnership the folks on Fort Knox with MWR and the surrounding communities will help share our communication, share our activities, our events and our festivals, and we will do the same for them. We will cross promote (and) help each other promote attractions and activities."
She added that another great thing from the partnership is the gold access card which will be a photo ID that will allow people access on Fort Knox for a year. It was created in part because of the recreation group.
Sarah Vaughn, the events coordinator for the city of Elizabeth- town, said there are numerous events in Hardin County and the partnership allows Fort Knox patrons an opportunity to attend these events.
"The city of Elizabethtown has 6,000 followers on our events page on Facebook so (we are) able to get the word out on how to get on base easier," said Vaughn. "The folks from Elizabethtown (who) work on base or have contracts on base are not even aware (what's needed to get on post). It's not just for events, it's across the board if you are going on Knox to work or do anything like that. It's going to be multifaceted."
Two other MOUs were signed at the community partnership Tuesday--an aggreement between the Fort Knox Directorate of Public Works and recylcing, and Elizabethtown Independent School District, and an agreement to support religious service for Title 10 personnel at Hardin Memorial Health.
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