CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
In honor of November being Military Family Month, the 437th Force Support Squadron Airman and Family Readiness Center is promoting the Armed Services YMCA Art and Essay Contests for 2009.
The art contest follows the theme "My Military Family" and children in Kindergarten through grade six who are from active-duty military or retired Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard or National Guard or reserve families are eligible to enter.
One $500 first place and one $100 second place U. S. Savings Bond will be awarded in each service category. Top six winners -- one from each service --will be highlighted on the Armed Services YMCA annual Military Family Month Poster.
Students are asked to draw a picture of their military family; entries with great use of color and patriotic themes have caught judges' attention in the past. All entries should be drawn on a 6 inch by 8 inch template included with the entry form. Note that this guidance is different from past years.
Entries should be postmarked no later than Feb. 20, 2009, to be eligible. Send them to Armed Services YMCA, Attn: Art Contest, 6359 Walker Lane, Suite 200, Alexandria, VA 22310.
The essay contest follows the theme "My Military Hero" and children in grades one through 12 who are from active-duty military or retired Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard or National Guard or reserve families are eligible to enter.
One $500 first place and one $100 second place savings bond will be awarded in categories for first and second grade; third and fourth grade; fifth and sixth grade; and seventh and eighth grade. Students in two high school categories, ninth and tenth, and eleventh and twelfth, will be awarded $1,000 bonds for first place and $200 bonds for second place. In addition, there are two $100 bonds for essays of honorable mention.
Grades 1-8 should write an essay of at least 100 words with no more than 300 words. Grades 9-12 should write no less than 300 words with no more than 500. The essay can focus on any person who is or has served in the U.S. military. As an example, the essay could be about a parent, sibling, son, daughter, grandfather, etc., or an unrelated figure from U.S. military history such as Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, George Washington, etc. The person need not be well known. They could have been an Army cook during Korea, an ensign in World War II, a medic in Vietnam or a truck driver in the Gulf. As long as the individual served in the U.S. military, the student can write about them. So, from the founding of America to the present, anyone who served can be the focus of the essay. Judges like creative entries where the writer has put some thought into his or her entry. Poetry, stories, and news articles are different formats that have caught judges' attention in the past.
Entries should be postmarked no later than March 20, 2009, to be eligible. Send them to Armed Services YMCA, Attn: Essay Contest, 6359 Walker Lane, Suite 200, Alexandria, VA 22310.
All entries for the art or essay contests should include the official entry form completely filled out and attached to the back side of each entry. The entry form can be found on the Armed Services YMCA Web site at www.asymca.org. For any additional information not found on the Web site, email the questions to tharper@asymca.org or call 703-313-9600, extension 10.