FORT BENNING, Ga. - Members of Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers logged more than 3,000 hours of volunteer service this fiscal year, earning them gold in the Presidential Volunteer Service Award. To achieve the gold, organizations must log a minimum of 1,000 hours with each member contributing at least 25 hours.
"Gold says a lot about Fort Benning BOSS Soldiers," said CSM James Foreman, garrison command sergeant major and senior BOSS advisor. "In order for us to qualify for any type of award or to get any type of recognition, the Soldiers have to give of their time to come out and participate in all these volunteer events. And most of these events - I would say, 90 percent - are on a Friday or a Saturday."
Soldiers volunteer with a variety of organizations, including House of Heroes, Help the Hooch, Open Door Community House, the Special Olympics and the AFLAC Cancer Center in Atlanta.
Foreman said Soldier participation is what sets the Fort Benning BOSS program apart.
"When we send out a request for volunteers, we get volunteers. Sometimes we get so many we have to turn some away," he said. "This BOSS program is the best I've seen ... and I've been to a lot of installations."
Community service is one of the three pillars, which include quality of life and recreation and leisure, of the BOSS program, said SGT Zkmain Sanchez, BOSS president.
"I think giving to the community creates a more well-rounded Soldier," she said. "It stimulates the hearts and minds of Soldiers to see they're needed beyond their duty on the battlefield. We have Soldiers who are from different parts of the world and no matter where they go, they have to be able to adjust in their environment, and community service is the perfect way to adjust."
In 28 years of service, Foreman said he has never seen a better combination of installation and community than the one here in the tricommunity.
"BOSS plays a big part in that," he said. "And that fosters a good relationship between the community downtown and the community on the installation."
Sanchez and Noelle Phillips, the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation BOSS advisor, will receive a pin, certificate and letter signed by the president Friday at the Fort Benning quarterly recognition of excellence breakfast.
For more information about the BOSS program, call the installation BOSS office at 706-626-0242 or Sanchez at 706-604-7675. To volunteer and track hours, call Starla Desaussure, the Fort Benning volunteer coordinator, at 706-545-3016.
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