Direct Line

Courtney Silvestre, Fleet Readiness Director

Good Morning, Sigonella. MWR is happy to be back in operation! On 11 March, we closed the doors to most of our facilities due to the threat of COVID-19, which directly impacted the quality of life for our community. For an organization whose mission is to improve quality of life and who has facilities and programs open on weekends and most holidays, this was a tough reality for the department to accept as well. Our team immediately went to work on offering local virtual alternatives, as well as joining forces with the different installations across the region to offer EURAFCENT@Home to the community. This website allowed folks to go on virtual travel tours, take cooking classes, find a work out, have story time for their children and so much more. Three months later, we are excited to have opened our fitness centers and pools, bowling center, movie theater, auto skills center, Jox Pub, Liberty Center, library, school age care and the child development center. While a majority of our open facilities have restrictions, we are thrilled to be moving toward normalcy.

Many factors went into the decision on when and how to re-open each facility, with the most important reason being our strategic alignment to our host nation’s decrees. As guests in this beautiful country and as employers of local nationals, it is our duty to respect their laws and regulations. In addition, we needed to make sure that our facilities and programs could maintain appropriate physicaldistancing, sanitization protocols and programmatic guidelines provided by our host nation, the Center for Disease Control, Navy Marine Corps Public Health and CNIC. The result is our crawl, walk, run approach to opening.

Our goal is to ensure the safety of our community and have a better understanding of our new capacity restrictions; gradually increasing our patron base and programs offered has allowed us to achieve those goals. However, there is only so much that MWR can do ensure the health and safety of others while we operate our programs and facilities. Most of the work required to keep our community in a low risk status relies on the actions of each individual. We depend on our patrons to wash their hands often, to not utilize our facilities with a fever or when suffering from any flu like illness, to wipe down equipment before and after use and to wear masks when required. If we all work together, we will be able to keep Sigonella strong.

In addition to our many openings, we are excited to have approval to hold our annual July 4th celebration: Red, White and Boom! Like our facilities, the event will not look the same as it has in the past due to various mitigations put in place to keep the community safe. This year, the event will be held on Marinai with activities spread out through the day, starting as early as 0800 with the Color Run and ending after the fireworks, which begin at 2100. We hope to see you all there!

While MWR is making changes to operations, we understand that everyone is trying to adjust to their lives in this ‘new normal.’ For that, we would like to thank the community for their patience and understanding during this extremely difficult time. MWR will continue to do all they can to provide similar, if not the same, services we did prior to COVID-19. For the latest on MWR openings, please visit our website at www.navymwrsigonella.com or our Facebook page, MWR Sigonella.