Saturday morning, several delegates from Becker’s Beyond the Yellow Ribbon committee — as well as elected officials, city staff and area veterans — gathered along Hwy. 10 to officially recognize a sign along the road declaring Becker as a Beyond the Yellow Ribbon city.
Mayor Lefty Kleis, City Administrator Greg Pruszinske, Sen. Dave Brown and Rep. Jim Newberger were just a few of the thrilled attendees to stake the claim.
And, as part of April being Month of the Military Child (MOMC), all the guests and their families were invited back to Gily’s banquet room to enjoy a meal and desserts while the kids got to play games and be entertained by Odie the Clown of Monticello.
The Becker BTYR called it “Military Kids Appreciation” day.
Over the past decade, thousands of wounded service members have returned home from war, only to struggle to adapt to new lives at home. A new study reveals that their 52,000 children are a highly impacted, but often overlooked, segment of the population directly affected by war.
The newly released “Study on Children of Seriously Wounded Service Members” was commissioned recently and five trends prevailed that impact the children of the returning wounded soldier.
The first is initial communication, the second is understanding the severity of the injury, third is the loss of childhood, fourth is diversion of parents’ attention and fifth is social and community isolation.
When not addressed, these challenges can have a lasting impact on children’s social, emotional, and academic development. While hundreds of organizations exist to support seriously wounded service members, too few of these resources focus on the children – who have sacrificed through their parent’s service and largely gone unnoticed.
While most understand the serious and long-term impacts of combat wounds on veterans, the impact on their families – particularly their young children – has never been studied in such detail.
Four bicycles were given away (two 20” and two 24” bikes) to Beyond the Yellow Ribbon is a comprehensive program that creates awareness for the purpose of connecting Servicemembers and their families with community support, training, services and resources.
