The Waterline
August 23, 2012
Vol. XXIX No.34
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NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION
NDW Meets Goal for Feds Feed Families By Benjamin Christensen, NDW Staff Writer
U.S. Navy photo by MC2 Kiona Miller
Religious Program Specialist 2nd Class Lamarsay Creer, assigned to Naval District Washington Headquarters, delivers donated food to the Capital Area Food Bank, located in Lorton, Va., as part of the Feds Feed Families program.
As the world’s economic pressures carry on month after month, even a home-cooked meal seems like a commodity too often hard to come by. However, as participants in the annual Feds Feeds Families drive, Naval District Washington is doing its part to ensure that no one has to go hungry in times of need. Feds Feed Families is a government wide effort led by the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is run from June through August, to coordinate not only with the typical drop in food bank donations, but also due to the rise in demand especially due to children’s absence from school and their receiving low-cost meals there. “Theneedhasnotgoneaway,”saidDirector of the Office of Personnel Management John Berry. “In too many families, one or both parents are still searching for work. Children are nowoutofschool,andsotheyaren'tbenefiting from school nutrition programs. The need is
even greater throughout our country this year.” Many federal agencies participate in the program, such as the Departments of the Interior, Labor, andTransportation, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency and the various military branches under DOD. Although this effort is separate and is certainly smaller than the annual Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), this is the only effort by the federal government’s agencies to collect foodstuffs for the less fortunate and not monetary donations. Food donations are collected in donation bins at various locations (in the military usually in command buildings, commissaries, the exchangeandotherhightrafficareas). Volunteers then collect the foodstuffs from the donation bins and deliver them to food banks, faithbasedcharities,andotherrelatedorganizations who then distribute them to those in need. The Navy has been an active participant in the years past, as have they been this year as well. Naval DistrictWashington, in particular, has been a very active participant in the program, meeting and in some cases even surpassing goals set. According to NDW Chaplain Gary Clore, regional program coordinator,
See Feed, Page 7
TenantCommandOverview:NavalHistoryandHeritageCommand By Benjamin Christensen, NDW Staff Writer In order to know where one or an organization is going, it is vital to look at its past: it is the responsibility of the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), headquartered on the Washington Navy Yard (WNY) to preserve, protect, and otherwise promote over 200 years of the U.S. Navy's legacy. NHHC is the central source for the Navy on naval history and heritage, made up of multiple detachments such as ten Navy museums nationwide, including the National Museum of the U.S. Navy at WNY, and the Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, currently serving as a museum ship in Groton, Conn. Besides managing the official history program of the Navy, NHHC provides historical analyses, narrative histories and reference works in an effort to advise the Navy, other agencies and the public on the topic of naval history.
"Information on anything that helps you to understand who you are and where you're going is important," said Lt. Cmdr. Heidi Lenzini, public affairs officer for the NHHC. "It's not a new idea." The roots of the NHHC go back to the year 1800 when President John Adams asked the first Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Stoddert, to prepare a catalog of professional books for use in the secretary's office. As time grew on, so did the role of this budding collection of historical works. By the period of the CivilWar, they included naval prints and photographs as well as professional periodicals, and important naval records which prompted Congress to authorize funds for the creation of the Office of Library and Naval War Records. By World War II, the records and official histories were bolstered by a series of oral histories taken under a program pioneered by Capt. Dudley Knox, the head of both this Historical Section, and the Office of Naval Records and Library. Other history projects were merged with
the Office of Library and Naval War Records to establish the Naval History Division. A sea heritage display center (now the main Navy museum located on WNY) was established in 1962. By 2006, all Navy museums were consolidated under the Naval Historical Center, and in light of its new responsibility for the entire Navy's history was renamed the NHHC in 2008. "It's important for people to be able to see and imagine how things were like, and how
we got to where we are: it's taken a whole lot of work," said Lenzini. "Really we're like what my mother liked to say: we're standing on the shoulders of giants. There were so many people, that to have the opportunities and resources that we have now, it took a lot of steps to get there." The command accessions and maintains records on a wide variety of subjects and mediums, including millions of operational records, personal papers, biographies, and oral histories; over a million artifacts including shipboard equipment, uniforms, weapons and flags, over 500,000 photographs, and over 30,000 drawings, paintings and prints. The NHHC works to ensure that all of these records are as accessible to both the Navy itself and the public as possible, making collaboration with the public essential. "When it comes to our contact with the public, we're like a sieve," said Lenzini. "Between veterans asking for things like VA
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Around the Yard, Page 2
AFPAK Blog, Page 6
See Heritage, Page 7