A Way to Help Local Military Families

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy to say that John Winkler's with it. Our friend
John Winkler, who is on the Offened Advisory Council board,
give me a heads up about something that's happening this
weekend that we can all help military families with at
the base.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
John, Good morning, Good morning, Gary, and thank you for
really appreciate.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The time you bet good to have you here. You've
heard John before. Usually when we're underwater, John heads up
the Papio Missouri River energy. But in this case, we're
talking about military families who are really trying to make
ends meet. And I think a lot of us, John,
are almost all of us appreciate our military people, but
haven't thought a lot about they're not making a ton

(00:43):
of money. What's the situation with some of these families.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of people think that,
you know, if you're in the military, that you're taken
care of as far as with pay and housing, in
all of the basic necessities. And I think that used
to be the case, but you know now the way
they count benefits and just the overall inflation picture and everything.
So what we've seen since I've been on the Advisory Council,

(01:07):
as we've seen an uptick in need, especially with the
lower enlisted folks like E seven or below. And not
many people know this, but there's actually it's called the
Airman's Addict and it's a five oh one C three.
It's not associated with the military, but they do give
them location on base and it's a it's a basically

(01:27):
a thrift store and a food pantry and they serve
over six hundred and forty families per month of military folks.
Just at off IT and doing research, I understand there's
over twenty two thousand members of our military and their
family that are on food stamps or other public benefits.

(01:48):
And so the off Advisory Council we do food drives
and we have we call Operation Giving Things where we
hand out turkeys and hams and gift cards during the
holidays to those members. But so what we're doing now
is we're teamed up with the great folks at High
V and we are conducting a diaper and baby wipe drive.

(02:11):
And that's one of the biggest needs besides food for
these enlisted folks is diapers and baby wipes. So we're
holding a drive this weekend Friday through Sunday, and it's
at two high V locations, the one in Papillion at
Shadow Lake and the one in Plattsmouth. And the drive
goes from Friday at three to six, Saturday ten to six,

(02:34):
and Sunday eleven to six. And so you can either
drop off, you can either drop off diapers or wipes,
or you can purchase a voucher and they have ten
and twenty dollars vouchers that we can buy diapers and
wipes at costs at IV and high VE has gone
above and beyond like they always do for our military members,
and they will provide a forty cent fuel saver for

(02:57):
a ten dollars voucher and a seven five cent fuel
savor to the customer for a twenty dollars about sure,
Oh that's cool, and so if you purchase yeah, So
it's a great partnership. I ve always steps up when
we do our operation giving things and the Airman's addict again,
it's it's a it's a great service to those folks

(03:19):
that are struggling to make ends meet, and there are
military members and I still can't wrap my head around
how we live in the greatest nation ever on the planet,
the only superpower left and we can't afford to pay
our military members a little.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I was just thinking the same thing, and you think
about these families. These are young, young kids in a way,
A lot of them, you know, as you say, enlisted in.
They're in their twenties, early thirties and having babies and
they're just trying to make ends meet. This will be
this is a great event. This is for the off
at Airman's Attic and again, John, it's it's what Friday

(03:55):
through Sunday.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
To Friday through Sunday, Tomorrow through Sunday. Yeah, Tomorrow Sunday,
and again you can drop off the dips or diapers
or wipes. You can donate cash, or you can purchase
a voucher at the checkout counters and that will go
toward purchasing those for the addict.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Great. Is there anything folks who who can't get there
can do online to help?

Speaker 2 (04:15):
If you want to get to the Offit Advisorycouncil dot
org website, there's all kinds of ways to assist with
many different things. But I also want to just hats
off to our current congressional delegation. They know this issue
and they have been working their tails off to get
it fixed. But until that time, we're going to keep
doing these things.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Wonderful. Now, can you get us a little rain so
we can talk about well, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Every time I'm on the show, I get people to
call me and they say, every time you're on the
radio is bad news.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah? Great, John, thanks so much