Volunteering Marine family wins award

Volunteering Marine family wins award

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Oct 30, 2009 13:52:00 EDT

Thirteen-year-old Jordan Leanes fixes up broken bikes and donates them to charities. His twin sister Syvannah organized a project to help wounded warriors through their church.

The twins, along with the other five members of their Marine Corps family — volunteers all — were named the National Military Family Association’s family of the year in the association’s 40th anniversary celebration Oct. 28.

It was all about military families, from first lady Michelle Obama’s videotaped message honoring and pledging support to military families, to videotaped messages from each service’s senior leader describing the accomplishments of the nominated families. And while members of Congress and a number of senior defense and civilian officials attended, the stars on stage and the constant focus were the military families.

Before he presented the award to the Leanes family, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, recognized military families “past, present and future.”
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_familyaward_103009w/