The Alabama Military Stability Foundation is proud to announce the creation of the Alabama Military Family Liaison position within its Heroes Welcome Initiative.
The Foundation has appointed Jennifer Holliday, a military spouse and entrepreneur, as the first Alabama Military Family Liaison. Holliday has over 21 years of military life experience, including 7 wartime deployments and 9 PCS moves, all while raising three children; and is Founder/Owner of the Holliday Design Studio LLC.
In her role as the State’s Liaison to military families, Holliday will develop and grow a first-of-its-kind state-wide network of military spouses, installations, and service-connected groups, organizations, and individuals called the Heroes Welcome Initiative Network, or Heroes WIN. The Heroes WIN will welcome incoming military families and serve as a communications conduit to Defense Communities across the State of Alabama and around the world.
The appointment follows the Heroes Welcome Initiative website launch (July 2020), which leads the Nation with a unique web experience that bridges the gap between the Department of Defense, the State of Alabama, Alabama-assigned DoD installations, and local defense communities.
Background:
In 2019, Lieutenant Governor Ainsworth cast a vision to create the Heroes Welcome Initiative, in support of military families and military family quality-of-life issues. The Initiative’s first program was to build a unique one-stop-shop online experience to assist military families as they transition to the State, bridging the gap between the Department of Defense, the State of Alabama, Alabama-assigned Department of Defense installations, and local defense communities.
At the same time, he pursued an aggressive legislative agenda in the 2020 Regular Legislative Session. Two significant bills in support of military families and their connected communities were signed into law:
- Allowing for development outside Maxwell Air Force Base and
- An extremely timely bill allowing children of military members transitioning to Alabama to use their PCS (Permanent Change of Station) orders as proof of residence to enroll in virtual school immediately rather than waiting until they move to the state.
Lieutenant Governor Ainsworth knows that making Alabama the most military-friendly state in the Nation means more than just launching a website, which is why Heroes Welcome is an expansive initiative.
It will not only include the Military Family Liaison, but also state-wide projects and legislation that seek to enhance military family quality of life, welcome military families moving to the State, and ease the transition for those families in matters such as schools and military spouse licensure reciprocity.
For questions, please contact: Robert La Branche, Executive Director, Alabama Military Stability Foundation at [email protected].
