On Saturday November 27th, American Legion Post 331 resumed its program of providing a trip home to selected members of the US Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May after a year’s pandemic hiatus. Each year a single serviceman, single servicewoman and a married service person and family are selected by a lottery on the USCG base for participation in the Post 331 “Home for the Holidays” program.
The requirement is that those personnel selected must be in the grade of E-4 and below. Post 331 then pays all expenses for the selected service personnel to travel home during the Christmas holidays, to include the family members of the selected married service person. This annual program was started by Jim Fleischmann of Post 331 in 2014. Jim is a former commander of the Post and each year tirelessly contacts local businesses and organizations to obtain donations for the program.
This year’s program participants include the following: Sharla Mae Sineath, who is going home to Lakewood, Florida to be with her father. Nick Zaenger, who is going home to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to spend Christmas with his family and cousins. Sean and Natalia Fernandez, who are going home for almost one month to Honolulu, Hawaii to be with their family. Sean is using saved up leave to extend his time at home. Sean recently became a member of Post 331 due to his status as a USCG active-duty member and veteran.
