Strengthening America’s Families: Joining Forces & Blue Star Families

Blue Star Families creates a platform for military families and civilian leaders to work together encouraging community-level leadership to address the challenges of military service. Through Joining Forces, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden -- a Blue Star mother herself -- have worked side-by-side with Blue Star Families to honor service members, veterans, and their families. This week, Blue Star Families hosted a celebration commemorating their fifth anniversary.

In the past five years, Blue Star Families has grown its membership and its programming exponentially. It has helped 700,000 military family members experience the arts through Blue Star Museums; it has gathered more than 26 million hours of volunteer service through Operation Honor Card, and it has informed policy makers through the publication of its annual Military Family Survey.

I was honored to attend the fifth anniversary celebration this week, and I was happy to help share this video from the First Lady with Blue Star Families:

Watch on YouTube

United States Army Colonel Steve Parker is the Executive Director of Joining Forces.