Soldiers, Families Attend 88th RD Sponsored Yellow Ribbon Event

Photo By Zachary Mott | Marilyn Anderson, left, and Tiffany Whetzel, both education services specialists with the 88th Readiness Division, conduct an education benefits briefing for Yellow Ribbon program attendees in Bloomington, Minnesota, June 3. The briefing highlighted the educational opportunities that are available to Soldiers and their families.  

BLOOMINGTON, MN, UNITED STATES

06.03.2018

Story by Zachary Mott 

88th Readiness Division

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – Soldiers and families in every stage of mobilization – pre-, during and post- -- descended upon suburban Minneapolis for a three-day Yellow Ribbon event sponsored by the 88th Readiness Division, June 1 to 3.

Yellow Ribbon is a program designed to bring together Soldiers and their families with pertinent resources from across the community to meet the specific needs of those in the three stages of mobilization. These community partners include Veterans Affairs, education services, retirement services, military partners, financial counseling and much more.

“Use those resources out there,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 John Brasfield, the command chief warrant officer for the 88th RD. “they help with all those things that you can do to plan and prepare to keep Murphy [chaos] and his friends out of your home.”

For this event, there were more than 275 Soldiers and family members in attendance. The majority of which were attending Event 3 – post deployment. An increased focus of the re-vamped Yellow Ribbon events is to ensure post-deployment Soldiers know the timelines for medical and dental coverages are set to expire after mobilization, specifically the Transitional Assistance Management Program (TAMP).

“That’s one that they definitely need to be attuned to with the TAMP, when they come back from a deployment they have medical insurance a certain amount of time and they need to take advantage of that,” said Sylvia Lopez, the 88th RDs Yellow Ribbon program manager.

Yellow Ribbon programs will continue to evolve to meet the needs of Soldiers and their families. Surveys are conducted during and after each event to ensure the content remains relevant and current.

“The surveys are so critical,” Lopez said. “They give us an indication as to whether we’re hitting our mark our not.”

Army Reserve units with an upcoming mobilization, units that are currently mobilized or units that have recently returned from a mobilization are eligible to attend a Yellow Ribbon program to help prepare Soldiers and families for any issues they may encounter in that process.

• Date Taken: 06.03.2018
• Date Posted: 06.05.2018 13:51
• Story ID: 279634
• Location: BLOOMINGTON, MN, US