Healthy Military Families Initiative

Serving those who have volunteered to serve our nation our USO has uncovered a real need – a need that we knew was an issue but were unsure how to handle to scale. At the Mayport USO we always maintained a modest food pantry for those same young enlisted who would find themselves in a bind, needing food, baby formula and diapers, to get them through to their next payday. According to militarybenefits.info, E1 – E4, the classic young enlisted personnel earn between $1,638 and $2,248 per month ($19,656 and $26,976 annually).

With hundreds of young, local active-duty military families struggling, the Jacksonville USO, Feeding Northeast Florida, and Humana Military have formed a partnership to provide these young families serving on active duty with critical resources. And together with Humana Military and Feeding Northeast Florida, we are making plans to launch a “stable pantry” inside the Mayport USO Center. Three pilot food distribution events were held in the Fall of 2018 proving both the need and concept for the stable pantry that will serve hundreds of young military families each month in 2019. Given the fact that so many of our enlisted personnel are food insecure, and as a natural extension of all that we do at the USO, we feel this Healthy Military Families program will make a positive difference in their health and financial wellbeing.

For more information, please email David Ostrum at dostrum@uso.org or call Mayport at 904-246-3481.

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