Photo By John Hamilton | A girl grabs an egg during the Fort Novosel Spring Fest egg hunt. More than 2,000 eggs...... read more read more
Fort Novosel, Ala. -- Fort Novosel’s annual spring events went to the next level this year with Spring Fest and the Aviation Branch Birthday.
Annually Fort Novosel hosts a Children's Fest in the spring with spring and Easter themed events. This year, however, the Gary Sinise Foundation offered to play a free concert for the Soldiers, families, and friends of Fort Novosel prompting the command to make the event a larger, more exciting one.
“Once we found out they were coming, we shifted Children's Fest to make it a big Spring Fest,” said Cherie Cain, Nonappropriated Funds Support Manager from Fort Novosel MWR.
Attracting a crowd in the thousands, families from Fort Novosel and the surrounding communities came to take part in the games, food, Easter egg hunts, and other activities.
“Everybody did really well, we have a good team at MWR,” said Cain. “It was really just a good family fun day.”
The Gary Sinise Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to improve the lives of Service Members, came prepared to do just that. The foundation fed Fort Novosel Soldiers a meal, and Sinise himself met with Gold Star family members. It was these activities that helped turn the event from an event for children into an event for everyone, both with and without families. As the installation has many Soldiers without families, organizations like Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers (BOSS), were also able to incorporate activities directed more toward adults.
“We wanted to do more for the adults with activities like BOSS sponsored events, and the Gary Sinise concert,” Cain said.
Wrapping it all up, the event closed with a performance by Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band, who played some favorites including some Disney tunes, and of course “Sweet Home Alabama” but also several original songs written by Gary Sinise's late son Max.
While almost all fun and games, events like Spring Fest serve an important purpose in the Army: to promote Soldier readiness by making sure their families are taken care of.
“It lets them know the communities are there to support their families and lets them know what’s here and that there’s people who care for their families when they deploy,” Cain said.
| Date Taken: | 04.12.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.23.2025 16:58 |
| Story ID: | 495915 |
| Location: | FORT NOVOSEL, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 41 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Lt. Dan Rocks Fort Novosel at Spring Fest, by John Hamilton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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