OUR ACTIONS
First Steps
The Jackson in Action 83 Foundation is less than a year old and is already taking steps to help deployed families deal with the emotional, physical and educational challenges with their children. Here’s a look at some of our first programs with some hints of things to come. Our goal is to be able to touch every deployed family with fun, facts, and effective tools. The Jackson in Action 83 Foundation’s standard is to be as resolute in our mission to help deployed families as those families’ soldiers are to protect our freedoms.
Return Celebrations (pilot program)
With the cooperation of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers professional football team the team provides 250 tickets to Tampa home games for recently returning soldiers and their spouses and kids. They get a commemorative t-shirt and their pictures broadcast on the big screen scoreboard.
Negotiations are under way to expand this pilot program to other professional sports in the Tampa area and long range plans are to set up programs in every NFL city.
Story Books
With input from experts and talented writers and illustrators the Jackson in Action Foundation is creating a series of children’s books to help kids and their parents deal with some of the educational, physical, and emotional programs that deployment can bring.
These age appropriate books are designed to be fun to read and high light not only the struggles but the triumphs and the amazing resiliency of deployed families.
Look out for our first volumes “The Home Front: Adventures of Danny DogTags in the coming months. This will be followed by his female cousin Khaki and her pet seal Navy.
Resource Guides for Deployed Families
On our website in libraries and in print the Jackson in Action is compiling a comprehensive guide to resources available for deployed families. There are already wonderful organizations, educators, and counselors who have developed very helpful materials. Our goal is to be one stop shopping for deployed families.
What’s more were we see a need to create new materials we intend to jump right in to help make them happen. Whether this means providing grants for content creators or hiring talented professionals ourselves, we will do what it takes.
School Aids
Schools and teachers end up dealing with lots of the problems of deployed families. Our goal at the Jackson in Action Foundation is to raise awareness for educators of this important issues. Then to provide them with background information and tools that they can use to help deployed families deal with any educational problems their children may have.
Yearly Conference
Once a year, the Jackson in Action Foundation will convene an important conference of educators, researchers, deployed families, military leaders and foundation supporters to assess our progress and share the best practices for dealing with the challenges of deployed families. Out of this meeting our agenda for the future will be set.
