Stout makes a Difference at Orphanage
By Photographer’s Mate Airman Tristan Miller, Fleet Public
Affairs Center, Atlantic
USS STOUT (April 18, 2006) – USS STOUT (DDG
55) Sailors participated in a Community Relations Project (COMREL) Tuesday
at Hogar Rosa Duarte, an all girls orphanage in the Dominican Republic.
While there, they cleaned the grounds and chopped down dead trees.
“I enjoy a chance to participate in
community service,” Fire Controlman Senior Chief (SW) Lewis Wilson said.
“It’s important for people to not only see us in uniform but to see us as
people who really want to help. We’re underway to build cooperation between
the United States and other countries, not only on a military level but on a
social level as well. I think community relations projects go hand in hand
with showing those nations that we are ready and willing to do that.”
This COMREL project is the second that
Sailors from Stout have participated in as part of the Partnership of
the Americas deployment with the George Washington Carrier Strike
Group.
“It’s important because it helps build
the relationship between the United States and other countries,” Electronics
Technician 2nd Class Ferrah Jex said. “It gives people a better
perspective, of what kind of people we are in the U.S., we’re not all stuck
up we’re actual people and want to help. I try to volunteer when I can”.
While clearing the yard of badly-leaning
palm trees and clearing a space for a garden, the volunteers saw very little
of the children. But afterwards the crew participants had a chance to sit
down with some of the students and through a translator talked about their
lives.
“Hogar Rosa Duarte houses almost 200
girls aging from 5 to 16 years old,” COMREL translator, Operations
Specialist Second Class (SW) Juan Martinez said. “The girls who live there
were either abandoned or dropped off by someone. That’s why we’re helping
out today: so they have a better environment to grow up in.”
STOUT is currently deployed as a unit of
the Partnership of the Americas, a maritime training and readiness
deployment of U.S. Naval forces with countries from the Caribbean and Latin
America, in support of SOUTHCOM objectives for enhanced maritime security. |
