Holiday support is always a concern for our units. We’ve been supporting the Sturgeon Bay for three July 4th holidays and we are going into our second Thanksgiving cooking holiday meals for the duty sections for the five cutters and the co-located ANT team at Bayonne. Last year along with Tony Carter of Division 5 we deep fried three turkeys with all the fixings. We plan to do the same this year. Hopefully we can make that a tradition.
We also are continuing to support the visiting cutters to Sector New York. For two consecutive New York Fleet Weeks, allowing the CS petty officers from the cutters to take liberty along with their shipmates. We’ve served hundreds of hot meals to hungry crews, often with minimal supervision and with the trust of the command cadre and the FS petty officers but this year we did something exceptional outside of Fleet Week.
A team of AUXFS personnel catered an evening reception for the alumni of the Coast Guard Academy and the Sector New York command cadre on the Barque Eagle. Our team of experienced, new and trainee chefs came together with Chief Tera Ashmore and her active duty team to serve elegant appetizers, hot and cold hors d'oeuvres and staff a carving station to serve over 100 guests.
Auxiliarists made this event possible, but best of all it allowed Chief Ashmore to give some of her team liberty on this port call. Carol Ryder and Alex Krupnick of Division 13, David Arroyo of Division 5, Monica Couillard of Division 10 and Gary Chapman of Division 2 did outstanding work.
Gary Chapman prepares beverages for the guests on board the Barque Eagle.