Did you just make a PCS move to a new area? Have some extra time on your hands? Want to make a difference doing something you enjoy? Meet MilSpouse Britni Miltner, author of MilSpouseResource.com, a personal blog focused on enabling fellow members of the Military Spouse community to inspire each other. Here’s what Britni had to say about her experience with the Military Spouse Advocacy Network (MSAN) mentorship program.
Volunteering Is Good for You: MSAN’s New Military Spouse Support Program
… I mention volunteering a lot in my blog posts. I honestly believe that volunteering makes a person better all around. It has so many amazing benefits. (Not to mention, it is job training and experience that can be added to a resume!)
All of my life, I have volunteered: at church, at food banks, offered babysitting services, through organizations in college, and I continue to volunteer today (The Girl Scouts, Spouses’ Club, and The Junior League are all included in organizations I have belonged in the past).
I volunteer because not only is it good for my mind, body and soul, but I continue to learn much about myself and others while volunteering. I am always collecting new skills and discovering new personal strengths and weaknesses. It can be quite exciting and eye opening.
I currently volunteer for a few organizations, and I am excited to announce that my newest volunteering experience will be with the Military Spouse Advocacy Network as a New Military Spouse Support Program Mentor.
I am especially excited about this program, as it will assist brand new military spouses during their very first experience with military life. The goal is to make it a positive experience, and not intimidating and scary, which it very well can be. If you follow my blog or know me personally, you’ll know that I like to support others and become their trusted “go-to” person, their cheerleader.
This role as a Mentor in MSAN’s new program will allow me to connect with a new spouse and help navigate them through understanding “the military life”. And, not only will I be offering a support system for a new spouse, I — as a mentor — will gain something in return.
You see, I believe that we all have something to learn from each other; the more experienced spouse from the newbie spouse and vice versa. As a mentor, I am certainly not going to know the answer to every question that a new spouse may have, and in order to assist that new spouse, I will have to research. And I will learn something new in the process!
So in this experience, both mentee and mentor will have learned something. And how exciting that I will be a vital part of assisting a new spouse feel a sense of belonging in a wonderful community! This mentor role could be life changing for some who may not know where to start as a brand new military spouse. And guess what? I bet it will be life changing for me, too.
This is how it will work:
One of the goals of this program is to steer the new spouse away from relying on social media to gather information on being married to the military. There can be a lot of information online that can be overwhelming and sometimes even negative. This kind of information can be discouraging for a new spouse. Heck, it can be discouraging for a spouse who has been around for years!
The intention of this program is to offer a personal “human touch” to the sometimes “cold shoulder” one might experience or feel when becoming a military spouse.
Not only do I believe that the New Military Spouse Support Program will make a tremendous difference in a new military spouses’s life, but I am proud to be a part of such a program. After all, it falls perfectly in line with MilSpouse Resource’s tagline: Let’s Support and Inspire Each Other.
I’m pretty sure this program is where I belong.
About Britni Miltner
Britni works in the corporate housing industry and has experience with client relocation, conflict resolution, customer service, vendor relations, and project management. A Navy Spouse since 2007, she started www.MilSpouseResource.com as a personal blog to offer information, support, and inspiration for military spouses in all walks of life. Her hope is to positively impact the Military Spouse community. The MilSpouse Resource motto is “Let’s Support and Inspire Each Other”.
