Moranda Hern and Kaylei Deakin are two California teens with one shared vision: to help all the girls in California who, like them, have parents deployed abroad. And they're looking for some help.
Hern and Deakin applied to DoSomething.org to fund their project, the Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs (BDUs are a reference to the more casual uniforms worn by soldiers) to help fund a conference for other teen girls struggling with the problems that come from having their military parents stationed abroad. They told NPR's Daniel Zwerdling:
Hern and Deakin say their idea was inspired by the misery they felt after their fathers, both members of the National Guard, went to Afghanistan. For instance, they say their friends basically deserted them."I was like a social pariah because my dad was gone, and they didn't know how to handle it," Hern says, sitting in her family's backyard near Fresno.
Both girls said they started doing more poorly in school, lost interest in extracurricular activities and isolated themselves, feeling misunderstood.
While such feelings are not uncommon among soldiers' kids, experts say they often hit children whose parents are deployed in the National Guard even harder.
Therapists who work with military children say this is a common problem, especially for kids like Hern and Deakin, whose fathers are working in the National Guard instead of in the Army, say, or the Marines. If their fathers lived on military bases, all the other children in the area would share the same problems. But National Guard troops are scattered around the community. Hern says none of her friends had military parents, so they didn't know how to react when her dad went to war.
Inspired by a speech by Maria Shriver, they came up with the idea for Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs and the conference. And they looked to the military for help.
Soon, they hammered out a detailed blueprint in PowerPoint form - and then asked to present it to Brig. Gen. Kight at the National Guard headquarters in Sacramento.Today, Kight remembers trying to contain her emotions as the 16-year-olds stood in front of a screen in the National Guard conference room and laid out their ideas.
"I just wanted to run up and hug them, they had so much to say," Kight says.
Kight's support wasn't just emotional. We contacted the public affairs office of the California National Guard, and Kight and her staff took the girls' idea straight to the top (and got support).
When we emailed the California National Guard asking if it was moving forward, we got a resounding "yes." According to Lieutenant Colonel Jon Siepmann:
Most of the activity to date has been in planning and building the organization. The National Guard just recently received approval to operate the event as a Morale Recreation and Welfare (MWR) activity, meaning that it can receive military funding and support. That really was the final step to letting the girls go out and begin fundraising and looking for sponsors for the event. It is scheduled for 12-14 March 2010.
So now they've got the National Guard on board, they just need the rest of the money to host the event and get the girls there!
Two Military Daughters Start Sisterhood For Teens [NPR]
Sisterhood of the Traveling BDUs [DoSomething.org]
