Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Justin Hardin | The Mobilization Support Brigade's (MSB) Unit Ministry Team (UMT) coordinated with...... read more read more
FORT CAVAZOS – Coffee is very prevalent in popular culture. Most people use it as a pick-me-up or as a treat. For servicemembers deployed throughout the world, the options and opportunity for coffee are limited. Chaplain (Capt.) David Martin of the Mobilization Support Brigade is doing his part to increase the options for Soldiers mobilizing out of Fort Cavazos. Martin reached out to Holy Joe’s Café to request a donation of coffee.
Holy Joe’s Café is a nonprofit organization that has a very simple mission: serving a little bit of home to those who serve our country. Through coordinated efforts Fort Cavazos received 26.5 double stacked pallets of a variety of coffee. Units mobilizing out of Fort Cavazos can go to the North Fort Cavazos chapel and request coffee to load into their container express (conex).
“My exposure to Holy Joe’s was during my last deployment. The chaplain tent that I manned had coffee and we had an area that was the Holy Joe’s coffee bar,” Martin said. “ They had donated coffee to us. We had tons of coffee, what that allowed me to do was to have a place where I got to interact with Soldiers.”
The idea of providing coffee came from the concept of three C’s, coffee, community, connection. When Soldiers drink coffee they tend to take a moment to connect with other Soldiers drinking coffee. Some Soldiers even utilize this time to conversate with the chaplain. These moments lead to greater resilience and gives the unit ministry team (UMT) a chance to disseminate information about other services offered by the chaplains and the Army in general. This moment also allows for Soldiers to talk with the umt about anything that may be bothering them or just to talk in general.
“Holy Joe’s allows organizations that don’t have a military affiliation to show their support to servicemembers and their families, “said Thomas Jastermsky, founder of Holy Joe’s Café.
Getting the coffee to Fort Cavazos took the effort of several organizations. Holy Joe’s café donated the coffee, a truck driver for Contract Freight Incorporated (CFI) donated time to drive the coffee to the warehouse and the warehouse workers unloaded the truck and staged the pallets of coffee. Without the kindness of donors this volume of coffee would be unlikely.
“We are happy to be of service through the chaplains, its more than just a cup of coffee, people can connect with each other if they are going through something,” Jastermsky explained. “This is a way to let the forward deployed servicemembers know we are thinking about them.”
While most of the coffee will be at chaplains’ tents on main post the unit ministry teams usually try to get the coffee out to areas that are not as built up. Some of the forward operating bases have been blessed with the presence of a umt carrying coffee from places like Green Mountain, McDonal’s, and Dunkin Donuts.
“I think Army wide coffee is something special,” explained Martin. “I say this quite a bit. There’re people that will never drink coffee in the civilian world, but once they put on this uniform, they drink coffee because it’s a cultural thing in the Army.”
| Date Taken: | 10.05.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 10.05.2023 15:25 |
| Story ID: | 455309 |
| Location: | FORT CAVAZOS, TX, US |
| Hometown: | OMAHA, NE, US |
| Web Views: | 115 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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