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 USJFCOM service members help local elementary school
USJFCOM personnel from the Operations, Plans, Logistics and Engineering Directorate helped beautify Southwestern Elementary School with a few freshly painted hallways.
Story and photo by Spc. Andrew Orillion
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(CHESAPEAKE, Va. – August 29, 2008) -– The hallways of Southwestern Elementary School will be a little brighter for returning students, thanks to volunteers from the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM). Personnel from the Operations, Plans, Logistics and Engineering Directorate (J3/4), volunteered their time to apply a little paint to the hallways of the school here recently.
Navy Chief Petty Officer LaTonya Smith, spearheaded the effort after word reached her of the schools need for painters. Smith has encouraged her fellow service members to volunteer in the community since she arrived at USJFCOM.
Through an ad in the school newspaper, Smith got in touch with Principal Gayle Bartlett. The school had the supplies needed to repaint the hallways, but with a two-year waiting list, the job would never have been completed before the start of the school year. That’s where Smith’s volunteers came in.
“Since that first contact, we have come out here whenever they have needed help,” Smith said.
For Bartlett, seeing the service members give of their time to help out the school was inspiring and showed the depth to which the service members cared for her students.
“It’s an incredible sense of community. We have a large school. We wanted to make sure when the kids came back that it was beautiful so they could take pride in it,” Bartlett said. “The students will have new shoes and we’ll have a new coat of paint.”
Assistant Principal T. P. Moyer, was also thrilled to have command’s support in beautifying the school.
“We saw an opportunity for them to come in and help spruce up the school and make it more warm and inviting for the students, facility and staff and also the parents that come in,” Moyer said. “I’m retired military, and to see them come out like that really made me proud.”
This was not the first time USJFCOM personnel had lent a helping hand to Southwestern Elementary School. Earlier in the year, they helped establish a garden for the students to study horticulture.
Smith is hoping to return soon to help paint the schools cafeteria. When the school year starts, the volunteering will not end. Smith and her team hope to lend a hand mentoring students and helping out in other ways during the school year. Smith said she wants to show the kids that military can do more than just fight.
“It’s important for the kids to see what the military service has to offer,” Smith said. “Not only that we do go on deployment and go over there and fight wars but we do come back here and help the kids on the educational side and also mentoring them.”
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