071: Community and fun events to support military families during times of deployment with Sabrina Johannes & Kim Clagg

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, a podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources and relevant stories for today's military spouses so they can continue to make confident and informed decisions for themselves and their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen a Moe's, a gold star, daughter, veteran spouse and your host for holding down the fort by us that wealth. Let's get started.

All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode here at holding down before to a now award winning show thanks to the Rosie network Entrepreneur Awards for choosing us as media professional of the year. I am your co host, Jenn Amos, and of course I have my other co host with me, Jenny Lynch troupe. Gentlemen, welcome back.

Unknown Speaker 0:53

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Jen Amos 0:56

Yeah, for sure. It's simply so great to have you. I feel like I'm just like a broken record every time I say that, but it's true. Awesome. And we're really excited because we have a returning guest on our show along with someone else that she's working with. So let me go ahead and bring them on. We have Sabrina Johanna's, who is the Executive Director of deployed love the Fort Bragg local coordinator and veteran spouse. Also nowadays, she likes to stay busy with homeschooling her kids and reading lots of books. We also have Kim clag, who is a president of the board for deployed love Fort Benning, local coordinator, army wife, and stay at home mom, who helps her kids through the chaos of this new normal as we know as COVID pandemic, craziness, etc. So Sabrina and Ken, welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 1:42

Hey, thanks for having me.

Jen Amos 1:43

Yeah, we're very happy to have you. I love how we were talking offline about like the most reset made us laugh. And so that was a fun exercise that we were able to do together. Sabrina, you were on the show about a year ago, and so much has changed with diploid love. For people that are hearing about diploid love for the first time. What do they need to know about it? And who do you serve?

Speaker 1 2:06

So we're a nonprofit, but we are mostly a community for military spouses. We're trying to expand to all the bases eventually. But right now we're at five, where we provide different community events throughout the year along with free holiday pictures for deployed families at Christmas time.

Jen Amos 2:23

Beautiful and Kim, I thought I'd get your thoughts as well. Anything you want to add about deployed love,

Speaker 2 2:28

just about the holiday minis I mean, it's our way of helping the military families and love downrange to their soldier while they're gone. So it's really a great event for all the families.

Jen Amos 2:41

Yeah, fantastic. Let's talk about the early stages of diploid love Sabrina, like how did you know to create this opportunity, and even choose the name diploid level the

Speaker 1 2:51

name diploid love. So there was actually a group of photographers that was stationed at Hood, Bragg and Campbell. So we just were a group of photographers that volunteered every year to do the free pictures. One of the girls at that time had chosen the name for it. And all that was was just a holiday minis, we did nothing else. And it was nice, but it was starting to fall apart because it was just trying to get people together. There was no organization to it. So last year, we decided it was time to get our nonprofit status so that we could do more for the families than just the pictures have things throughout the year and create a community where we can give back to them all year round.

Jen Amos 3:25

Yeah. Fantastic. I love that. And Jenny Lynn, I thought I'd check in with you see if there's anything you wanted to add or any questions. Oh, I think this

Speaker 3 3:32

is super fun. Makes me a little sad. I'm Navy not army because certainly an army bases. But it's I think it's a great initiative.

Speaker 1 3:40

Yeah, we're our actual goal for this coming year is to get some representatives from all the different branches of the military, so that we can go to the other bases right now we just only know army spouses, so it's easier to get volunteers. We're really hoping to be able to branch to the other branches of the military. Awesome.

Speaker 2 3:59

A lot of our volunteers fall in love with the event when they attend the event. So then for future, they try to come on and help and be coordinators. So a lot of those wives and spouses are army. But like Sabrina said, we have very exciting plans for the future.

Jen Amos 4:18

Oh, good. Good. Yeah. So give us a snapshot. I know we sort of hinted at it already. But give us a snapshot of what the holiday minis look like. I know that the time of this recording, the events have already passed. But for people that are hearing about it for the first time, what does it setup look like? How can people show up? And what does that process look like for them to get a photo shoot.

Speaker 2 4:37

So social media is where a lot of the deployed love has the different pages for each base. So a lot of the information comes out on the social media pages and for family to find it all they have to do is look up our diploid love page and they can find all the different bases that were at through there. And each base will have information for their events, the only thing that we really asked is that this event is for spouses with deployed soldiers. So they can sign up and come and get a whole free photo session, we have volunteers that come and help during the event, we have photographers that come and take the photos. And then in about two weeks, they'll get their photos and they can either print Christmas cards or send them downrange as a gift, or just have it for, you know, one of the memory books.

Jen Amos 5:32

Well, I think that's beautiful. Have you had an experience so far, either of you, were you were you're volunteering your time and doing this and something happened that kind of made you tear up and you're like, I'm so glad I'm doing this, or this is why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 5:46

Yeah. So yeah, we definitely we get this girl, I was not at the check in table at the time, but I was watching her body language. And she just looked so sad when she checked in and then she came back afterwards. And she was like, this has been the best day of the entire deployment. My kids, I haven't seen them so happy and forever. And she's like this would have meant so much to see that in the middle of COVID. All these families are here. And these people are volunteering their entire day just to show us love. Like just to be here, we needed the support. She came back into your like she was crying, it was just like, You have no idea how much this means to us this year. So I think

Jen Amos 6:24

it's very common knowledge for spouses to put themselves last. And so to be kind of put in the spotlight and you know what to do with your family especially, and to feel beautiful and special in that way. I can only imagine like what that makes them feel.

Speaker 1 6:38

Yeah, I think a lot of them it is the only time they've dressed up all year they have no, I've had no reason to dress up. I know like so. It's exciting for them to get to be in their best clothes and get nice pictures of themselves taken. So

Jen Amos 6:51

yeah, definitely. I think that's amazing.

Speaker 3 6:53

I don't know how many more stories of like tear jerking things I can handle today. I am naturally a crier. And when we mix in military families and spouses, I get a little choked up. So you know, thank you for what you do and for sharing your time and talent with our community.

Speaker 1 7:10

Yeah, we love it. It's a really, really good experience. And we also include Goldstar families. So they're welcome to sign up for any event for free as well, because of course, it's like their spouses continuously don't deployed. So they always get our appreciation.

Jen Amos 7:24

Oh, that's so beautiful. I appreciate that. And I love how you're continuing to expand. So let's go ahead and pivot to that. Actually, before I want to cover all my bases. Is there anything else you want our listeners to know about the holiday minis?

Speaker 2 7:37

You asked a minute ago, you know, what is something that happened at one of the events that made you tear up, and my personal experiences from actually being able to attend the event. So I never heard a deployed love, my husband was gone, I was extremely pregnant, he was going to miss the birth, the Christmas and everything. And I was able to sign up for one of the events. And at the time, I was like, this is silly. You know, I don't want to get the kids dressed. He's not here, let's not, you know, do this. And something just made me go and we took our daddy doll. And we actually kept it a secret. I asked the coordinators not to share it. And so I was able to send it down to him downrange and it was like, I know you're not in it. But you know, Merry Christmas from us. And it was like I am in it. Like you put the daddy doll in it. Like he loved it. And it really it made me feel, you know, just all the emotions because he was so happy that we had the pictures taken and that he was in the picture still, even though he was gone. So it just made it really rewarding that we could still have that connection through the photos.

Jen Amos 8:54

Yeah, I mean, a picture says: 1000

Speaker 2 9:15

you know, as a military spouse, you just have to make the best of your situation, you have to try to stay positive and just keep moving forward.

Jen Amos 9:22

some big things coming up for: 2021

Speaker 1 9:50

Oh, go ahead. So I know that when we talked last it was basically just us here at Fort Bragg last year. And we the exciting news is we are at six spaces now. We are expansion throughout the year went really well. We got lots of new coordinators on base. And we had five events of our holiday minis. So we got to like over 200 Different families this year. So that was exciting. But we're also trying to do exactly the same thing next year, we're adding five more bases. And so we're hoping that everything will continue to go that way.

Jen Amos: 10:20

Yeah, I think that's really awesome. Tell us about the setup at a couple of these bases. Is there like a location like a building that you reserve? Or? Like how does that play out like once you say like, Okay, we got these bases down.

: 10:33

We get volunteers, so we get two coordinators for each base. And then they just work out of their own home it's generally mostly events or like a coffee houses or at the park. Um, it's just community just to get them out and meeting other spouses that are deployed because not always as FRG, get families together in that sense, where they make you make friends and stuff, it's more information. So we like to be able to get these events out where they can get their kids playing and talk to other spouses and just find people that are going through it at the same time.

Jen Amos: 11:02

Yeah, I think that's really incredible. For our

: 11:05

events, it's kind of like Sabrina said, the coordinators, just they find their location. And I know here at Benning, we had a just a person that heard about our event, and just loved it and was like, come have it here. We want you here. So we got really lucky with that. So a lot of times the people in the community will hear about deployed love and what they're doing for the families and they want to help. So it all comes together really nicely.

Jen Amos: 11:33

Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, one. First of all, it's great to give back to the community in this sense, but also the community itself that gets build in deployed love. I can imagine how fun that is to be able to create that network even just for yourselves. Oh, yeah,

: 11:49

we've made I've made a lot of friends and say, My photographers here brag, since we've been here for this was our fourth year, come back every year. They look forward to it. They helped me pick the date for the next year because they want to make sure they can do it. So we there have all become really close friends. It's really nice to have that. Yeah, the community volunteers.

Jen Amos: 12:06

Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned that you're hoping to do some things throughout the year other than the mini sessions or the holiday minis, what else are you hoping to do?

: 12:15

And we do have a like a social media on Facebook, we have a group that we're trying to get more active and so that they can ask questions about predeployment or homecomings, and what to expect and things like that. But we're also hoping to do just coffee dates playdates at the park, just getting people out.

Jen Amos: 12:32

Yeah, for sure. I kind of like stemmed from, you know, photography to now like, let's be friends, and that's like, actually do life together?

: 12:40

Yeah, it's definitely nice to have a community, especially when we move every three years. And if we're at all the different bases, it's something when you move, you can just like, hey, do they have a deployed love here, I want to meet these people that are already in my community. And so it helps with the PCs and everything, too.

Jen Amos: 12:55

Yeah, for sure. It's kind of like just that familiarity. It's like a franchise, it's like going to McDonald's around the world. It's like, it doesn't matter where you're at, like, it's McDonald's. It's consistent, you know, and if you can find someone who is in that same network with you, at least with diploid love, it's like, oh, like, you're part of that too. And you're able to have that familiarity.

: 13:12

Yeah. And I feel like it'd be a part of the Facebook group where we all kind of talk, you could already have friends at your new base, by time you start to head that direction. And that's always nice to have someone that can show you around town, or whatever it is that you need.

: 13:25

Like Sabrina said, Just building that community, we want the spouses to feel like they are not alone. They have somebody at wherever they're going so that they can experience that season in the most positive way possible.

Jen Amos: 13:40

Yeah, for sure. And then genuine, anything you want to add,

: 13:43

oh, man, they're speaking my language community building a love it like, and that piece about trying to make sure something is available for future PCS is I will say that having moved multiple times in our military life, there are always a few organizations that look for ASB on the leadership team of a mops group. And that was like the first thing I looked for when we moved because it is that instant community, you get to ask where the grocery store is, who has the best coffee and all of the things that are actually important about living somewhere new. So you know, kudos to you guys for adding that extra piece of not only do we offer this service, but for trying to keep you guys connected. I think that's great.

Jen Amos: 14:25

Yeah, the thing I really love the most about our military community and really our spouses is especially if you kind of lean more on this side, but really being proactive about building community and reminding each of us that we're not alone, because as we all know, only less than 1% of Americans like serve and then military spouses are a very tiny percentage of that already tiny percentage, you know, so to be able to stick together and say, Hey, we're here for you like we go through the same problems. We have to start over every single time. But hey, take a picture with us and it's free. For the holiday minis it's like why Like you don't feel alone, and you still feel special and pretty. And you know, you could still create these memories that, you know, our average American families can't experience for the holidays. I mean, even that my husband and I are civilian. It's like, we don't take holiday photos. I should really talk to him about that. But anyway, I'm just like thinking out loud right now. Yeah, so I am curious to ask for both of you, since you've been on this journey so far with deployed love, what are you most proud of so far in what you've built?

: 15:29

For me, I love all of our like coordinators. But our board, it's changed so much since last year. It kind of you weed through people who are kind of committed versus you find the people who are just there. They're there for you as friends. They're there for you as a community. And we work together, we work together every week. I mean, we're talking all day, every day about things as we go. And we've just really grown and we're adding a new treasure this week. And it's we're really, really excited to just grow and find the people who really want to be committed to helping our community grow.

Jen Amos: 16:00

Yeah, fantastic. And Kim thing here,

: 16:03

just the spouses that you get to meet, you know, move into a new base, I just moved here when I came on board, brand new to beginning. I'm from here, but moved back and didn't know anyone had to look for another Coordinator here at Benning. And she ended up becoming one of my best friends. So just finding that tribe of people here, having the event and meeting all the volunteers has kind of helped build that already. So it's great to find it now. And not right before you PCs. You always make your your great friends right before you PCs. Like whenever we meet sooner.

Jen Amos: 16:42

That's awful. That brings me back to my childhood when I was a military child. And like I just started making friends at a certain point in my life. And then we're like, Okay, we gotta go. And I was like, but no, you know, I was just, I just just brought me back to those times. And I was very upset. I was very upset, did not recover from that for a very long time. Like having to start over. I wish I had the support back then. But anyway, here we are today. And I'm in counseling, so it works out. Yay. Mental Health. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Kim and Sabrina, let our listeners know, obviously, I obviously what you do is good work. Let us know like how can they get involved? And how specifically can they help you out? I know we hinted at it. But let's kind of like summarize, like how our listeners can get involved and, and help out.

: 17:25

The biggest thing coming up is that our new FBI bases, I don't have them up top of my head, but they are on our website and everything. We're looking for two coordinators at each of the new bases that we're going to. And we also we always need photographers just volunteers that I mean, volunteering for us can be as short as actually showing up to the playdates because sometimes we only have two families that come and so if we have more volunteers, it's more faces, more families, just simple things or even for the Christmas minis, if you can't commit to a full day, donate some candy canes, or you know, bring Christmas cards. Just little things that give back without having to really do too much is always very much appreciated.

Jen Amos: 18:03

Yeah, definitely. And Kim, anything you want to add to that.

: 18:07

If they are curious about us or want to reach out to us, we are always on social media, you will reach one of the board or Sabrina, we will immediately reply back usually within, you know within the hour. So if you have any questions or just need something, feel free to always reach out to us.

Jen Amos: 18:28

Yeah, for sure. And I do have your website here deployed. love.org deployed is past tense deployed, is that past tense deployed? It's anyway, deployed love.org or the Facebook page is deployed love sessions. And as well as your email address deployed love org@gmail.com. Gentlemen, anything you want to add before I finally wrap up? No, no, I'm

Unknown Speaker: 18:51

good. Okay, cool. Join the conversation.

Jen Amos: 18:53

You guys are so easy to talk to today. Just like straight into the point. It's like, I don't have to like work as hard. It's great. No, but I have fun doing this anyway. Okay, so before, before we go, Sabrina and Kim, any closing final thoughts you want to share with our spouses who listened to holding down the fort?

: 19:11

Just remember, I think I said at the same thing last year, you're not alone. We're an entirely big military family. And there's always always someone who will answer the phone, come to your house, whatever it is that you need, especially during deployments. It feels very lonely. My husband's deployed right now. So I know. And Christmas is rough. So if you need someone to come over and just sit with you and your kids open presents, I mean, that's what your military families for so

Jen Amos: 19:37

beautiful. And Kim, thanks for anesthetic. Great.

Unknown Speaker: 19:41

Just here if you need anything.

Jen Amos: 19:43

Beautiful. Awesome. All right. Well, I think that pretty much wraps up our conversation today. Jennylyn. Any more closing thoughts from you before I do my official closing statement that I have in front of me now? Because I usually forget to do that. No, all right. Cool. All right. And to our listeners, we note that today's episode gave you one more piece of knowledge resource a relevant story, so you can continue to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. We look forward to speaking with you in the next episode. Until then, tune in next time