FEATURE
Operation Homefront – Assisting Military
Members and Wounded Warriors
By: Jacqueline Webster
Life as a military service member is not easy, things happen, and there are times in life when one must
ask for help. In those times of need, Operation Homefront has provided wounded warriors and service
members with emergency financial assistance and other means of aid.
Charlotte Merriam, Executive
Director of Operation Homefront’s Rocky Mountain Field
Office, explains, “Our primary
focus is financial assistance
for the lower-mid grade enlisted, E1 to E6, who are not paid very much.”
“Our Field Office works directly with military families and
conducts programs like our Back to School Brigade,
Holiday Toy Drive, Star Spangled Baby Showers, and
Homefront Celebrations. We also help families in need of
emergency financial assistance and work with our caseworkers at Operation Homefront’s national headquarters
in San Antonio, Texas,” Merriam explains.
Operation Homefront came about shortly after 9/11,
when a group of military spouses came together and
formed a mutual support society.
Operation Homefront provides outreach to the military
community through Family Readiness Groups, newcomer fairs at local installations, newspapers, TV, social
media and various other military channels. However,
Merriam expressed the best outreach is word of mouth
from families they have helped in the past and added
“The military community in Colorado is very tight-knit,
and people rely on each other to learn about the best
sources of help.”
“They traded advice online and started raising money to
help each other and other military families to deal with
the emergencies and challenges that came up with their
spouses fighting in Iraq, and then Afghanistan. Over
time, people in other states did the same thing and started their own chapters of Operation Homefront, until it
became a national organization.”
Colorado Springs is the home of Operation Homefront’s
Rocky Mountain Field Office, which serves both Colorado and Wyoming.
Under the ‘current needs’ section of their website, Operation Homefront posts various needs of families on their
site to give people a concrete idea of how their money
will be helping others. The needs vary from flood damage, to the struggle to find employment, to a new start
for an injured solider.
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