019: Creating community with free events and holiday mini sessions with Sabrina Johannes

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome, and thanks for joining us for another episode of holding down the fort, a podcast show where we put military spouses and children's needs front and center so that they can make informed decisions together as a family. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jenny, most a veteran spouse and Goldstar daughter, and your host for today's show. Let's get started.

All right. Hi, everyone. Jen amo is here with holding down the fort podcast show. And I'm excited because every time I get to do another show, it means that I get to interview another incredible person in our military community. So I want to introduce you all to Sabrina Johanna's. She is a former army wife, Executive Director of deployed love, and a photographer with moment in paradise photography. She's also a very busy mom, Sabrina, welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 1:02

Hi, how are you doing?

Jen Amos 1:04

I'm doing great. It's currently gloomy here in Virginia. But my attitude is not gloomy. So it's fine. Why don't we start Sabrina by you sharing? How did you hear about holding down the fort podcast? Because I know that you reached out to me, and what inspired you to be on our show today?

Speaker 1 1:23

All right, so I was just on Instagram, we have a hashtag deployed love. So I was just kind of browsing pictures that had been posted. And I came across one from your Instagram. And I was like, Ooh, this sounds like someone I really need to talk to. And so I listened to a couple of your episodes. And I just knew that I was like, I need to reach out to her because we have exactly what she likes to talk about on her show. And we definitely would be reaching the same amount of people that we need to talk to.

Jen Amos 1:46

Yes. It's always great when people reach out to me because it makes my job easier. So I don't have to do as much outreach. And since we started the show, it's been really awesome. People have been making recommendations for us to bring people on the show and you know, feature nonprofits and individuals who are all about the military community. So I'm just glad. I'm glad that our marketing worked on Instagram or hashtag marketing works that you were able to find us. So good to know. Yeah, I always like to ask that question first. Because it's always good to know how we get found. And social media is always like one of the best tools to be found, I think.

Speaker 1 2:24

I think it's a Yeah, and the hashtags because we post on it, I want to see if other people are following. So it's nice way to find people who have the similar ideas. Yeah, yeah,

Jen Amos 2:32

definitely. Yeah. That's what I love about hashtags. They're like, mini communities in itself.

Speaker 1 2:37

Yeah. And they're very specific. So you're not going to just get random people. Everybody that is on hashtag deploy. Love has something to do with deployments. So

Jen Amos 2:46

yes, absolutely. Well, Sabrina, for people that are getting to know you for the first time, why don't you share a little snapshot of your life today, particularly what keeps you busy and most excited? One thing I want to add to that is that I know that you were previously a military spouse. So I am kind of curious to know what your life looks like today, post military spouse life.

Speaker 1 3:06

Well, on that sense, my husband just went to civilian world. So it's kind of the same. He's on night shift right now. And he's still deployed. So I still run in the same boat as Army Wives without the army title. But my mainly my day is waking up really early to get the kids to school, and then I go straight to the gym, because I know if I don't go right after I dropped the kids off, I'm not gonna get to the gym. And then I always run my errands when I'm in town, because I technically live outside of Fayetteville. So it's easier once I'm already there to go run all my errands for work and groceries and all the mom things you got to do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then I spend most of my day doing admin, a lot of emails because what's deployed love right now we're just in a really big growing phase. So there's a lot of reaching out to people like you and reaching out to other companies to just get our name out there this year.

Jen Amos 3:55

Yeah, that's awesome. I like how you take a moment after you drop off your kids for self care and go to the gym.

Speaker 1 4:01

Sure, yeah. I would not be able to stay sane if I didn't have my one hour each morning.

Jen Amos 4:05

Awesome. Well, yeah, speaking of deployed love, i Let's go ahead and just dive into that. I read a little bit about it. And you shared some information for me. So from my understanding, you're a nonprofit that creates community for spouses while their service member is deployed. And you have a main event coming up which we can get into a little bit. So why don't we start with you sharing? How did that how did deployed love get started? Hey, everyone, Jen here, just taking a quick second to talk about our major sponsor for holding down the fort podcast show. We got us vet wealth, understand that our military service members and families are unique amongst Americans, and that we have a passion for service and all that we do. Traditional financial service firms have focused on guiding you towards saving for retirement. But most servicemembers and their families will have a second lifetime and a second career between the time they get out of the military and the time that they reach retirement age. Each many of us also want to do good in the world. But we don't want to wait until we're 65. To do it, we believe that there's never been a better opportunity in history to be a military service member, military spouse, or veteran and the United States of America right now. And we want to assist you in positioning your money, not for retirement, but to support your dreams. Today, learn more about us vet wealth at US pet wealth.com. Or check out our recent feature in the military families magazine link provided in the show notes.

Speaker 1 5:32

We started out as just a small group of photographers that want to get back to the community. We were here at Fort Bragg and then at Fort Campbell, as well. And we've just kind of at the time, we weren't actually nonprofit status. So we just were doing it all on charity, just us doing what we could do. It's grown over the last three years. And we've decided that's when it was time to get a nonprofit status. So we could get donations, and we could start reaching out to more bases in the coming years. Just something to give back. Because I know when there's husbands deployed or the wife is deployed, they get lots of gifts, bags and stuff in the mail cards and stuff. But then sometimes the spouses who are going through just as hard of a year are kind of just forgotten and those behind when they're at home.

Jen Amos 6:14

Yeah, I always like to say, and a lot of people have told me that. So that's probably why I'm saying it. But you know, military spouses are really the silent warriors, I think in the military community. And I think even the kids are also silent warriors, you know, they have to they're dependent on what goes on with the service member and having to adapt to all of that. So really awesome that are there resources today. And many more, I think, that are really focused on the military spouse, at the end of the day, like the military spouse maintains a home for the service member to come back to,

Speaker 1 6:48

I mean, they the military service member also looks to them when they're on their time off to talk to them and have just that camaraderie. And they have to be able to keep a you know, a happy front at home and try to keep it easy for them. So they're not worried about what's going on at home. So they have to also keep that help with the soldier as well as keep their kids happy and situations. So I think military spouses go through a lot. And they really do need the support.

Jen Amos 7:13

Yeah, of course. So what deployed love that's really awesome that you have been active for three years, and the nonprofit status that How long has that been for?

Speaker 1 7:24

We just got it a couple of months ago. So we're just kind of starting out fresh on the nonprofit end. Oh, very

Jen Amos 7:29

cool. Very cool. You actually had mentioned in our notes here that the main event is Holiday Mini sessions. I'd love for you to talk about that and what that event entails.

Speaker 1 7:39

Right? We just actually had ours on Saturday here at Fort Bragg and we're the only active one this year. So we got we do mini sessions. So we have volunteer photographers come out professional photographers, they each spend 20 minutes with each family, we had 95 families come out on Saturday, just to get pictures taken, they can use them for Christmas cards, I can send them out as gifts to the military member who's deployed. And it's a hole that we have Santa comes out cookies, and it's a really good time every year.

Jen Amos 8:11

In addition to the Holiday Mini sessions, are there any other events or anything else that deployed love offers.

Speaker 1 8:18

So right now it has been just a holiday minis it was an easy to it takes us most of the year to plan one of that with that many families. But we are going to start branching out here at Fort Bragg to see what other programs look, we're thinking about doing maybe an Easter slash spring event since not everybody's deployed over Christmas. And then that way we can reach the other half of families.

Jen Amos 8:39

Now that's smart. Definitely. You also mentioned that you're a photographer with moment in paradise photography, what do you feel like is the most gratifying part of doing deployed love as a photographer, it's

Speaker 1 8:53

just reaching out to these families. And someone there that gets to know them sits down and talks to them during their session, spends time with their family, because a lot of times they're here by themselves, that base isn't there not have family around someone to love on their kids and just tell them how cute their family is, it's as good. And they get to connect with me. And they get to know that there are people out there that are like really do care about how they're doing.

Jen Amos 9:19

That's super awesome. I really think that the number one issue within military families or with with the military family community is struggling with loneliness and feeling like you have to kind of do everything on your own and hold down the fort on your own. And so it's just really awesome to have a research such as this where these families can be seen and be validated that, hey, we're all in this together. Like we all are living this deployed life, this military life where it could be lonely, but knowing that there are other people that are going through it as well. It's not so bad.

Speaker 1 9:53

I think as the coordinator, one of the coolest things I've seen over the last few years, is we'll have families come out to get to pay pitchers. And then like next year, they come back and volunteer to take care of the ones that are getting pictures the next year, it's just like been a really wonderful circle of receiving and giving back. It's just that melts me to see the same families come back the next year and give to others.

Jen Amos: 10:15

Yeah, it's like you've created this little community and itself and with diploid love.

: 10:20

That's, that's really our goal. We want to be able to do even meet up to something throughout the year as we start to grow, where they know that each month they get to see other people that are going to do the same thing. And yeah, just give back to each other and help each other through it all.

Jen Amos: 10:35

Yeah, absolutely. So now that you and your husband are out of the military, and with deployed love, it makes you it kind of brings you back into the military community and involved with the military community. Do you feel like that? Is your community? Like overall? Like that's a community you feel most connected with?

: 10:54

Yeah, yeah. My husband was in for almost nine years. So it was most of my adult life. I've been around the military and, and with him as being a civilian contract, we still are he let works on base. And it's nice to keep those people and I'm used to them coming and going. And you get to have friends all over the world, which is like the coolest part of being part of the military community to me.

Jen Amos: 11:16

Yeah, you know, I agree. I, what is it so I consider myself a veteran spouse, I met my husband after his service, but I was also a military child for the first decade of my life. And I feel like I just kind of keep coming back to the military community. I think it's because just the community understands what it's like to constantly uproot your life and having to make new friends. And, in fact, I almost feel like I don't know if this is just me. But sometimes I feel like I'm almost afraid of stability, like staying in one place for too long. Because I'm just not used to it.

: 11:53

We've been here for almost three years. And I'm like, so window removing the first time where I'm like we have, it's gotta be time to move soon, right? You get used to that change all the time. And it's kind of fun, because I like living in different places. So maybe we will move and just take his job to a different base.

Jen Amos: 12:11

Yeah, it's, it is fun. I think at the end of the day, like even though my husband and I are not active duty, and we just moved to Virginia, I was already telling him, I was like, you know, I can see us living here for maybe three to five years. But in terms of settling, I don't I don't know, I'm gonna have to figure that out later in life. But for now, it's like, I like this whole idea of I don't know what the next 510 years of my life is gonna look like.

: 12:34

Yeah, I mean, you know, like business wise, what you'll do, but it is it's fun to, we couldn't move. We were stationed in Hawaii and Germany in Texas. So like, you get to see all over the world. And it's amazing.

Jen Amos: 12:47

Definitely. Well, awesome. Sabrina, I want to thank you so much for taking some time to share a little bit about yourself and your story. And talking about deployed love and all the good work that you're doing over there in Fort Bragg. And I want to wish you and deployed love and your team, the best of luck and expanding, feel free to reach out again next year. I'm sure we'll touch base again to see how far you've expanded because it looks like your goal here is to expand in four new bases. Is that correct? Right. We're

: 13:17

gonna try this for a year. That way we can make sure we're training our new coordinators and giving them all the information to make it go smoothly. Because there's a lot of little details and we've been doing it for three years, and I feel like it'd be good for us to give them all those details and know where to start. So we are we're gonna look at Benning. I believe Campbell's could and Carson are gonna be our next four big ones.

Jen Amos: 13:40

Awesome. Awesome. That's cool. I was gonna ask you what was on your wish list for bases to reach out to?

: 13:46

You know, if you would ask the President of the Board she always says Hawaii she's like then we have to go to Hawaii to train them.

Jen Amos: 13:52

Yep, yep, that's a good excuse to go to Hawaii that's for sure. Awesome. Well Sabrina for people that love the idea of deployed love and want to get involved or learn more how can they do that?

: 14:05

could email me personally at deployed love org@gmail.com We're also we have a website if not we don't have our domain set up yet. So it's kind of a long website but it's www deployed love or dot wix site.com forward slash my site.

Jen Amos: 14:24

Okay, awesome. And to our listeners, if you didn't get that don't worry. I always like to add that in the show notes. So you're welcome

Unknown Speaker: 14:32

along one without it Yeah.

Jen Amos: 14:34

Yeah, I feel like I just What is it so what once I got comfortable like updating show notes, I just tell people like, hey, just email me stuff like after the show, and I'll just throw it in there in the show notes. So people don't have to like rewind and then have to try to write that down really quickly. Because usually they're driving when they're listening to our show. So it's like I don't want to I don't want to be reason for you get into a car accident for trying to write something down. Yeah, beautiful. Sabrina. Do you have any Closing thoughts for our listeners are our fellow military family community.

: 15:06

Just know there are people we care about you. We want you to have good deployments and get through it and keep your sanity in the meantime.

Jen Amos: 15:14

That's good. That's a great way to close out. Well, there you have it, listeners. We had Sabrina Johanna's with diploid love. I want to thank you all for listening. And like we mentioned, if you didn't get the website links or contact information right away that will be provided in the show notes for you. So Sabrina, thank you so much for your time and to our listeners once again, and hopefully you had gained another resource to help hold down the fort at home. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode. Tune in next time.