MCRD/ERR Parris Island Marine Wins Trip to Super Bowl in the MCCS Football Bash Promotion. HQMC (MR) Quantico, VA – Cpl Leah Mast was the lucky winner of the 2009 Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS) Football Bash Grand Prize – a five day/four night, all expense paid trip for two to Miami, FL to attend Super Bowl XLIV, valued at over $7,500.
            This fall, MCCS clubs and restaurants across the Corps sponsored the MCCS Football Bash in an effort to get Marines into MCCS facilities for a little fun, camaraderie, and football. In all, MCCS club and restaurant patrons submitted over 60,000 raffle entries. Official event sponsors included Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, DUB, GNC, Outback Restaurant, and Tyson Foods.
            As the winner of an installation Football Bash raffle, Cpl Mast was eligible for a 1 in 21 chance at the Grand Prize. Her name was drawn during a raffle on Dec. 11, 2009, at HQMC, Personnel and Family Readiness Division, aboard MCB Quantico, VA. MGySgt Raul Claudio, Marine Corps Exchange Operations Chief, drew the winning ticket.
            The Grand Prize winner receives tickets for two to Super Bowl XLIV, airfare, four nights lodging, a Fuji digital camera, $500 spending money, and gift certificates to Outback Restaurant. Pvt Matthew Soua, MCB Camp Butler, won the Second Place Prize of $1,000, a set of DUB 20” custom rims, and a TomTom GPS. LCpl Terry Cross, MCAS Miramar, won the Third Place Prize of $500, a set of DUB 20” custom rims, and a Coby portable DVD player.
            Be sure to ask your local MCCS club manager about current contests and promotions going on at your installation. MCCS patrons just like you do win! Don’t miss out, participate today!

MCCS Recognizes Food and Hospitality Activities. HQMC (MR) Quantico, VA – The Food and Hospitality Excellence Award Program was established by Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS) to recognize those food and hospitality activities who not only meet high standards of excellence, but have exceeded the standards and by doing so, have exceeded guests’ expectations.
            These awards give the opportunity for any club, restaurant, snack bar, or lodging facility, regardless of size or location, to measure themselves against criteria in pre-established categories of customer service, financial performance, human resources, and operations. Innovative managers and exceptional staff continue to build programs for Marines and their families. Renovated facilities, new programs and special events, and outstanding customer service distinguish the recipients of this year’s Food and Hospitality Excellence Awards.
            These awards are part of the MCCS Food and Hospitality Conference being held at MCB Quantico. For more information about the Marine Corps Food and Hospitality Excellence Award Program contact Nancy Pasternack, Catering and Promotional Event Specialist, at 703-784-3894 or pasternackn@usmc-mccs.org.

Forty activities, at twelve installations, will receive Food and Hospitality Excellence Awards for their operations:

Milspeak New Military Life Anthology Debuts. Winston-Salem, NC – In June 2005, retired Marine Sally Drumm set out to create a memoir-writing program for military people. Four years later, Milspeak Creative Writing Seminar participants’ work is collected in MILSPEAK: WARRIORS, VETERANS, FAMILY, AND FRIENDS WRITING THE MILITARY EXPERIENCE. Also included are poetry, essay, and memoir by established authors who assisted in developing the workshop and mentoring writers, among them Michael Kobre, Dinty W. Moore, Richard Peabody, and Rebecca McClanahan. Also in this hefty 474-page anthology published by Press 53, editor Sally Drumm provides readers with the workshop story as it unfolds parallel to her own search for home and stability following a twenty-year military career and assignment of a 60% service-connected disability rating.
            Each of MILSPEAK’s 58 selections is a carefully crafted reminiscence, a completed piece of a larger personal history, the telling of a particularly eventful moment, a personal, cultural and historical record, and a work of art. Due to the traditional silence concerning military life, Milspeak writers’ stories are often difficult for them to share and some are shared for the first time in this collection. Milspeak writers, their friends and mentors come together in MILSPEAK to share their understanding of the power of writing to heal wounds of memory and to broaden civilian understanding of military life.
            MILSPEAK debuted on July 4, 2009, readings from the anthology are directed by Dr. John Blair and staged by the Rogues & Vacaboundes Players, each night from 8-10 pm. Admission is free at the USCB Performing Arts Center, 801 Carteret St., Beaufort, SC, with a reception and book signing with the writers each night. Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, and Beaufort Naval Hospital are also located in Beaufort, SC.
            Press 53 is an independent literary publishing company dedicated to finding new markets for anthologies and short stories, part of which involves the publisher acting as an advisor for short story adaptation to the School of Filmmaking faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. To schedule a reading or interview, contact the editor at postmaster@milspeak.org or Kevin Watson at kevin@press53.com or at 336-414-5599.

Camp Pendleton Executive Chef honored with MWR Rookie of the Year Award. HQMC (MR) Quantico, VA – Mindy Petersen, Executive Chef, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, CA, is the Marine Corps recipient of the International Military Community Executives Association (IMCEA) Irving Rubenstein Memorial “MWR Rookie of the Year Award.”
            The award is designed to recognize outstanding achievement and exceptional contributions to the military MWR profession. Each year the IMCEA honors MWR professionals who have distinguished themselves among their peers through leadership and excellence in the conduct of military MWR operations. This year the awards were presented in late February at the annual IMCEA Awards Reception in Las Vegas, NV.
            The Irving Rubenstein Memorial Award recognizes one MWR professional from each of the five branches of the Armed Forces who has been in an MWR management position for less than two years, displays exceptional management and leadership skills, and possesses great potential for continued success in military MWR.
            In the first six months after assuming her position as Executive Chef, in June 2007, Chef Petersen spearheaded food and beverage plans and operations for a host of large scale high profile activities to include the MCCS 4th of July Beach Bash, the Base Color’s Ceremony, San Diego Fire Storm Base Evacuee Food Service, the South Mesa Club Grand Re-opening, the Rockin’ the Corps Concert, and numerous Marine Corps Balls. Attendance at some of these events was as high as 20,000 people. At the same time she was acting as the interim chef at the San Luis Rey Officers’ Club where her culinary expertise and hospitable nature quickly endeared her to the membership and garnered raving fans.
            Major General Michael R. Lehnert, Commanding General, Marine Corps Installations West commended Chef Petersen “for going the extra mile, for caring about our troops and families, for doing the right things when you thought nobody was watching, for turning your job into an avocation and you interactions with others into life experiences, for contributing to the success of our Club System though your positive actions.”

MCCS and Sodexo partner to improve youth sports. HQMC (MR) Quantico, VA – Officials from Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS) and Sodexo Government Services met to kick off a year-long youth sports sponsorship program.
            Timothy R. Larsen, Director Personal and Family Readiness Division (MajGen USMC Ret.), and Terrill Wicks, Section Head Children, Youth and Teen Program, accepted a commercial sponsorship check for $61,500 from Greg Verone, Sodexo’s President of Government Services, and David Bennett, Senior Vice President for Defense East. 
            “Sodexo has a wealth of expertise in health and wellness which is an integral part of our corporate citizenship commitments,” said Verone.  “We are honored to sponsor this project because we have a strong commitment to help improve the quality of life for the families of those who serve our nation.”  
            Under the sponsorship agreement, the money will be used to improve youth sports activities at installations world-wide. Sodexo has also agreed to provide an end of season pizza party for sports participants at 11 installations in the continental United States.  Sodexo has been involved with the Marine Corps Marathon’s Healthy Kids Fun Run since 2004, but this is their first sponsorship that will touch military children at the installation level.
            “It was only fitting that this year long sponsorship, which will benefit children across the Marine Corps, start in April, the Month of the Military Child,” said Wicks. “This 23rd annual celebration honors the “young” heroes of the military, today’s military children who make significant sacrifices, yet proudly support their parents.”
            The MCCS Youth Sports program provides year round activities such as football, soccer, baseball, and basketball for boys and girls ages 6 – 18 years old. These programs help youth and teens achieve and maintain fitness, acquire a broad range of physical skills, develop a sense of teamwork, cooperation and fairness that lead to healthy, active lifestyles.
            For more information about youth sports or other activities contact your installation Childcare Resource and Referral Office.  For more information about the MCCS corporate sponsorship program please contact the Sponsorship Coordinator at (703) 784-3894 or email: mccssponsorship@usmc-mccs.org.

EFMP to Provide Continuum of Care. HQMC (MR), Quantico, VA – A new level of support is being provided to Marines and their families who are enrolled in the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP). A combination of increased resources, additional personnel, and technology has enabled the EFMP to more effectively support enrolled families and provide needed case management services.
            According to Lt. Col. Craig Kilhenny, the HQMC branch head for Family Readiness programs, the revitalized EFMP program is no longer focused solely on assignment coordination.
            “The new focus is on providing a continuum of care to facilitate a seamless transition from installation to installation,” said Kilhenny. “EFMP staff will work with families on assignment coordination and to resolve medical and educational challenges to achieve the best possible outcomes. Services such as respite care for enrolled families, sponsor informed assignment screening, and family case workers will meet the program’s mission of providing an improved quality of life and a continuum of care.”
            Kilhenny added that 50 highly qualified and trained EFMP managers and staff have been hired to support the new continuum of care. New family case workers will assist the family with the oftentimes competing demands of coordinating care for their family and the multiple moves and deployments required of the military lifestyle. The family case worker will help a family find local resources, EFMP respite care, gain appropriate services in a timely manner, recreation opportunities, or assistance in working with local school districts.
            Families sometimes face systemic problems, beyond the capability of their family case worker or installation to resolve. An EFMP Advocate and an Attorney Advisor are available to identify and address these systemic issues, inform leadership and recommend policy and legislative changes.
            Kilhenny said, “Installation EFMP Training, Education and Outreach Specialists at each installation will conduct Quarterly Family Forums, briefings to commands, and classes for families on a range of topics of interest. They will also work with community/installation stakeholders and service providers to ensure the best possible services are provided to enrolled families.”