Awards will be conveyed at May 6-7 event
LOWER TOWNSHIP – In preparation for the May 6-7 Coast Guard Community Festival, County Freeholders voted unanimously on April 25 to recognize two individuals who will be honored with special designations at the Festival: Tracey Grant as the “Coast Guard Community Spouse of the Year,” and Lantz Bowman as the 2017 “Community Coast Guardian.”
The Coast Guard Spouse award is presented annually to a Coast Guard spouse who has provided exemplary support for his or her active duty spouse and family, and who also has enriched the wider community. In recognizing Grant’s selection for this award, Freeholders said she has “inspired friends and family alike” in the manner with which she has adapted – and helped her family adapt – to the multiple geographic relocations that most Coast Guard families experience.
Grant has insisted that her family spend its first year at each new locale as a “Year of Yes,” Freeholders noted, and that means saying “yes” to as many new local experiences and activities as possible. It’s an approach intended to create meaningful immersion and a sense of community.
“What a great, pro-active approach to a challenge,” said Cape May County Freeholder Will Morey. “And our own community – the County – gets a double benefit: not only do we have a new Coast Guard family in town, but we have residents joining ongoing community activities.”
Grant is married to Lieutenant Commander Andrew Grant, an attorney and active Coast Guardsman stationed at TRACEN Cape May for the past two years. During that time, she has actively volunteered with both the Cape May County Animal Shelter and Adoption Center – where she is qualified as an animal handler who feeds, grooms, walks and socializes pets to aid in their adoption – and assisting at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, where she serves on MAC’s Volunteer Committee and boosts activities such as the holiday tour of homes.
Grant also is actively involved in the Jersey Cape Military Spouses’ Club, serving as a liaison between the club and MAC, performing committee tasks, and helping with activities such as the provision of holiday stockings to hundreds of recruits undergoing training each year. The Freeholders’ April 25 Resolution notes that the holiday event “provides encouragement and eases the emotional strain for young service members away from home during the holidays for the first time.”
In addition to these activities, Grant is leader of the Guardian Spouse program at TRACEN, a group that provides guidance to new military spouses about the benefits and challenges of military life. She has created an innovative outreach program that uses computer-based training modules to provide the families of new recruits with timely information about insurance, pay, financial management, moving household goods and a host of other topics creating a more involved and informed family experience.
Like the spousal award, the annual Community Coast Guardian award seeks to honor an individual with a distinguished record of volunteer service to the local community. This year’s winner, Lantz Bowman, is an active duty Coast Guard Machinery Technician at TRACEN, who joined the Coast Guard in August 2009 and previously served in Omaha, Neb., Clearwater, Fla. and Morgan City, La.
Bowman has volunteered over 150 hours on projects at the Nature Center of Cape May, an organization with a long history of interaction with Coast Guard families. Bowman has led efforts in a wide variety of repair and maintenance projects, including grounds and building maintenance, landscaping, painting and much more, all providing significant cost savings to the Nature Center.
His work “equates directly to saving our nonprofit center hundreds if not thousands of dollars,” the Nature Center’s Executive Director Gretchen Whitman told Freeholders in a letter supporting Bowman’s candidacy.
Bowman also assists with the Nature Center’s projects for elementary school students, and he assisted with a reptile educational program for special needs children and adults.
In light of the significance of Bowman’s many contributions, the Nature Center recently presented him with its “Golden Whelk” award, given to a volunteer who goes “above and beyond what is expected.”
Bowman has represented the Coast Guard in media events emphasizing boat safety, has discussed Coast Guard law enforcement with students of Cape May Technical High School, and participates in Coast Guard auxiliary events with children from multiple elementary schools in Cape May County, stressing the importance of safety measures near and on the water.
In their April 25 resolution, Freeholders noted that “through all this service Mr. Bowman has helped shape the quality and reach of multiple community organizations, and has deeply touched and positively affected many lives throughout our community.”
This year’s multi-day Coast Guard Community Festival is the third since the County was honored with the coveted “Coast Guard Community” designation. Bowman and Grant will be given their awards on Sunday, May 7 at a 10 a.m. award ceremony to take place at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal. On Saturday, May 6, the TRACEN base will be open to the public for displays, activities, music and camaraderie. In past years, the Festival has attracted thousands of attendees.
Readers can find a full schedule of Festival events at www.CoastGuardCommunity.org.
Cape May – Governor Murphy says he doesn't know anything about the drones and doesn't know what they are doing but he does know that they are not dangerous. Does anyone feel better now?
