‘Taking Care Of Our Own’

By John Clark
Wednesday - May 11, 2011 Share

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By CDR John Clark, SCAH Member
Supply Corps Association of Hawaii

The Navy Supply Corps Foundation is a nonprofit philanthropic and social organization with membership open to all individuals who have served as an officer in the United States Navy Supply Corps. A worldwide organization, the Supply Corps Foundation currently has 19 chapters across the U.S. and four International chapters in Iraq, Japan, Afghanistan and Italy. Each chapter is chartered by the foundation and is an ongoing resource for active-duty, reserve, retired and prior service Supply Corps officers in the geographic area served by the association. The Supply Corps Association of Hawaii (SCAH) is the local chapter for Navy Supply Corps Officers living in Oahu.

Although serving within the U.S. military comes with many wonderful benefits, there also are many stressors that are unique to only military members and their families, specifically deployments and mandatory relocating.

To help ease these stressors, the Supply Corps adopted the phrase “Taking Care of Our Own” as a significant part of its mission. To fulfill this concept, SCAH provides professional support to its members through networking mixers and mentoring.

SCAH members Rear Adm. Jonathan Yuen and Capt. John Polowczyk (on left and right ends) accept a check for $10,000 from VA Loans Hawaii owner Tony Dias to go toward the nonprofit’s scholarship program

In addition, the foundation has established a Scholarship Award Program and a Memorial Scholarship fund for Supply Corps personnel and their families. The Memorial Scholarship Program provides $10,000 scholarships to the children of Supply Corps service members who have lost their lives while serving our country. To date, 33 children have lost a mother or father who served within the U.S. Navy Supply Corps, and five teens from the list received $10,000 scholarships for the 2010-11 school year.

This is an extremely worthy scholarship program; accordingly, SCAH organizes fundraisers throughout the year to help support its continuation. SCAH’s most recent fundraising efforts took place this past March as The Navy Supply Corps celebrated its 216th birthday. VA Loans Hawaii was the Diamond Sponsor and contributed a $10,000 donation.

For information on the SCAH, visit sca-hawaii.org.

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