America Supports You: Groups Team Up to Entertain Military Kids

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2007 – Children of servicemembers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here have a new recreation option thanks to the team effort of three nonprofit groups and a defense contractor.

The Yellow Ribbon Fund dedicated a playground at Walter Reed’s Mologne House yesterday. The facility was constructed primarily for children staying at the residential facility for recovering servicemembers and their families.

“This playground fills a longstanding need for children staying at our facility who, until now, had very limited recreational opportunities,” said Peter Anderson, Mologne House’s general manager. “We are extremely grateful to the Yellow Ribbon Fund and the employees of BAE Systems for their generosity and kindness.”

The completion of the playground fulfills a dream, said Edward J. Quinn, a member of Yellow Ribbon Fund’s board of directors.

“Every day, our wounded servicemen and women return from combat, many to long-term rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and (the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md.),” he said. “The Yellow Ribbon Fund’s mission is to welcome them home and into our community. We are equally committed to making their families feel at home.”

The Yellow Ribbon Fund is a supporter of America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and corporations with military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad.

Both the Armed Forces Foundation and Operation Homefront, also supporters of America Support You, lent their assistance to the playground project.

Operation Homefront provides emergency support and services to servicemembers and their families. The Armed Forces Foundation works to promote the morale, welfare and quality-of-life of active and retired servicemembers, National Guardsmen, reservists, and their families.

“When we heard of the Yellow Ribbon Fund’s plans to build a playground that would fill such a huge need for the children at Mologne House, we knew we had to get involved,” said Amy Palmer, Operation Homefront’s executive vice president of operations and development.

BAE System’s ongoing “Operation Noble Cause” initiative led to the contractor’s involvement in the Mologne House playground project.

“Our employees embrace the credo, ‘We protect those who protect us,’” said Rebekah Nottingham, BAE’s vice president of customer requirements. “This commitment applies as much to our individual support of our fighting men and women as it does to the products and services we provide.”

BAE employees across the country raised $60,000 for the playground project through “Operation Noble Cause.”