ENC businesses and organizations mark Military Spouse Appreciation Day

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - Friday is Military Spouse Appreciation day across the state of North Carolina and some organizations came together in Jacksonville to spread some love.

North Carolina is home to 52,982 military spouses of active duty and over 11,484 spouses of reserve soldiers.

Haley Gulette explains some of the challenges of moving a family of four so frequently during deployments.

“You have to think we move so often I have a one-year-old who’s lived in two different states. I’ve got a 3-year-old who’s lived in three different states,” said Gulette.

The Knights of Columbus Catholic fraternal organization and McDonald’s partnered to host a gift-giving event for spouses.

“They’re deploying for year-long events out there and then typically on their third or fourth deployment out there. It’s just amazing to see what these families would do and in fact, the wives and the kids are here still involved with their families. It’s just to me it’s touching you know,” said Knights of Columbus member and military veteran Manny Comas.

The office of state Human Resources started the Military Spouse Transition Network to help spouses who are state employees find similar state jobs when their service member spouse gets orders to deploy to another state.

State officials explained the importance of this program, especially for families experiencing a move, known as Permanent Change of Station.

“As a military spouse myself PCS season is extremely stressful. Transitioning your family, your children, connecting to a new school district, as well as possibly being in a job search. As we know searching for any position is a full-time job. Having a program like this for me means everything. So if we’re moving to another state this is one less thing I have to stress about.”

Blue Star Families surveyed show 20% of military spouses are unemployed.

The Military Spouse Transition Program applies to state government employees, and state university employees in multiple states around the country.

The office of state Human Resources says North Carolina joins 18 other states in the national association of state personnel executive’s military spouse transition network.

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