| Yellow Ribbon Room Opens in Baumholder for Families |
| [7/19/2010] |
Source: Army News Service |
Back to Community Life
By Ignacio Rubalcava
The new Family Readiness Center Yellow Ribbon Room opened its doors at 3 p.m. June 17 when Col. Patrick Matlock, 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team commander, and Lt. Col. Paul Pfahler, U.S. Army Garrison Baumholder commander, cut the yellow ribbon spanning the doorway to the facility and welcomed several family readiness liaisons, Family Readiness Group leaders and other garrison members. "This facility will be 'task force home front,' said Pfahler.
The Yellow Ribbon Room is in Building 8876, the same building where the Housing Office is located on Wetzel.
"This is a great example of how a little energy, a little vision can come together and provide a great facility for our community, so, my personal thanks on behalf of all the Soldiers and families in the community," said Matlock.
"We put it here because it used to be here and it made sense," said Pfahler. The facility was primarily funded with SRM dollars. "We did the walls and the ceilings. Everything else you see in this building, except for $999 worth of stuff that we purchased with a donation from the BCSC, everything else, all the furniture, everything, we found at installations that were closing. The two new things that are in here are the flat-screen televisions that came out of our Army Family Covenant money," said Pfahler.
"We tried to create a facility that facilitated meetings and had a safe area for kids where you could keep one adult in the room," said Pfahler. He also explained that the facility was not a place for Christmas parties or for units to conduct training. There are other facilities on Baumholder that can accommodate those needs.
Phahler explained how the facility could be reserved for meetings.
"Here is how we're going to do business. If you plan your meetings, you'll plan them with your FRSA. Then your FRSA, not the brigade but the battalion will be authorized to come to ACS and book this place. They will be responsible for this place, for signing for it and for turning it back the same way it was. I'm hoping people don't come in and move a whole bunch of stuff around, but they will. It just needs to go back," he said.
The facility will also include four computers with Internet. The flat-screen televisions can be used to show videos or do training.
Command Sgt. Maj. Earla Reddock explained that although much of the credit for improvements in the community go to the commander and herself, nothing would be possible without the many people who work for the garrison.
"We just represent the garrison. We're always thinking about the garrison, and we're always thinking about the Baumholder military community. We're thinking about our Soldiers, our civilians and our family members, so please, welcome to your facility. Give us some feedback, negative or positive," said Reddock.
"We tried to create what we would have wanted, but we don't deploy so this is what we created for you," said Pfahler.
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