KMC celebrates National Volunteer Week

Lt. Col. Erik Daiga
415th Base Support Battalion


***image1***For the past 32 years, our country has nationally recognized community volunteers during the month of April.

This year’s National Volunteer Week is April 17 to 23.
My observation has been that in the KMC, every week can be considered “volunteer week” as evidenced by the nearly 3,000 registered Army volunteers donating more than 72,000 hours of their time in just the past year.

There are endless volunteer opportunities to help our Army accomplish its mission and make our community a better place to live and work. Volunteer duties in the KMC range from helping an Army family deal with a year-long deployment through a unit Family Readiness Group, to assisting teachers and students in our Department of Defense Dependent School classrooms, to building sets for a “KMC Onstage” production.

Other local opportunities include volunteering with organizations such as the Red Cross, USO, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, Army Community Services, Child and Youth Services and Outdoor Recreation just to name a few.

Why volunteer? It’s a great opportunity to meet new people, improve personal and professional skills, explore new interests, stay active, earn promotion points and most important of all, feel good about helping someone else.

As Brian Tracy, the best-selling author of numerous personal and business success books writes, “Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking what’s in it for me.”

The 415th Base Support Battalion will recognize our Army community’s most outstanding volunteers during our annual Volunteer of the Year ceremony 6 p.m. April 28 at Armstrong Community Club on Vogelweh Housing.

If you’d like to find out more about this ceremony or additional information on volunteer programs in the Kaiserslautern Military Community, call Catherine Locke, our 415th Base Support Battalion Volunteer coordinator, at 489-6713.