News 6 Mashup: June 6, 2022

Here is this week’s News 6 mashup of stories for the week of June 6, 2022, straight from AWN News 6 Correspondent, Jolene McNutt:

Military Family Lifestyle Survey Open

Blue Star Families has opened their 2022 Military Family Lifestyle Survey. Your voice is important and it can make a difference. Share your family’s unique military life experiences by taking the #BSFSurvey. Your feedback will drive solutions and create change for fellow military families. This year the survey will be available in both English and Spanish.

It took me about 30 minutes to take the survey. It sounds like a lot, but this survey impacts military family programming and resources! Your voice matters! 

Veteran’s Spouse Project Awarded $10k NEA Grant

Veteran’s Spouse Project has been approved for a $10,000 Grants for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support their Heart to Script monologue series. This project will further VSP’s mission of uplifting and empowering the military spouse’s voice in order to support military families and bridge the gap of understanding between the military and civilian communities.

This powerful project allows military spouses from all generations to share their story, finding understanding and solidarity with other military spouses. It also  helps non-military friends and family understand just a little bit more about what military life is like. 

Our own command team volunteer, Kathleen Palmer, has attended this workshop. She wrote about it in this post – The Self Care Conundrum.

Here is her powerful monologue that she created through the workshop:

Blue Star Museums Program Open for Summer

While we’re on the subject of arts, Blue Star Museums program has kicked off! This partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Blue Star Families offers free admission to active duty military personnel and their families, and National Guard and Reserve. You can find a list of participating museums by state. Our family plans day trips to museums based on this list! If you’re looking for a bit more of an vacation, you might want to check out Wisconsin’s participating Blue Star Museums, summer is the perfect time to visit this state and I can personally attest to the Experimental Aircraft Association museum, the Dinosaur Discovery Museum, Circus World Museum, Discovery World and the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Check out participating museums at the Blue Star Museums website.

This Week in History

On June 14, 1777 the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white” and that “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” It wasn’t until 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson established June 14 as Flag Day – a day to celebrate Old Glory, shared History.com.

What’s a celebration without a few fun facts? Did you know there have been 27 versions of the American flag, and the most rec ent version was designed by a 17-year-old Robert Heft of Lancaster, Ohio. He submitted the design in 1958 and it was selected out of over 1,500 submissions. The current flag has also been the longest standing version because no states have been added since Hawaii in 1959. Read more facts at the National Flag Foundation.