Labors of Love

Picture of Comfort - An innovative personal touch helps reinforce family ties for those who are apart.

For the children and spouses of deployed military personnel, the months—sometimes years—that loved ones are deployed can be filled with longing, loneliness and sleepless nights. And though nothing can take the place of having Mom, Dad, husband or wife back home, the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (SJAFB) in Goldsboro, North Carolina, has developed a way for airmen and their families to hold each other close, even when oceans divide them.

Through the Readiness Emergency Sleep Tool or REST, Tech Sergeant Cindy Hartsfield, the officer in charge of the program, prints out photos of military personnel and iron-transfers them onto pillowcases and T-shirts to give to deployed airmen and their families. That way, children and spouses can sleep easier with their loved one beside them. Young children receive infant T-shirts with Mom’s or Dad’s picture so they can put it on a favorite stuffed animal and carry it everywhere. “It is something tangible that they can hug and talk to,” says Hartsfield.

When the Neuse River Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans heard about REST, which is supported by donations, they stepped up to help as part of their Join Hands Day project for 2006. Four of Neuse River’s six churches and their youth groups pooled financial resources, purchasing T-shirts and pillowcases and delivering them to SJAFB.

“I thought it sounded like a wonderful idea to be able to keep your family close by during deployment,” says Catherine Schweizer, who was Neuse River’s financial director when the project was implemented.

—Sarah Asp Olson

To make a donation to the REST program at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina, send checks made payable to “Friends of Airmen and Family Readiness Program” with REST program in the memo line to:

4 MSS/DPF
1200 Wright Brothers Ave.
Seymour Johnson Air Force Base
NC 27531

Or call: 919-722-1123