CAPE MAY, N.J. – The Coast Guard and American Red Cross will place Coast Guard recruits with several dozen South Jersey families for Thanksgiving as part of Operation Fireside, Thursday at 8:30 a.m.
Coast Guard Training Center Cape May has approximately 190 recruits in training from more than 30 states and U.S. territories including one from Connecticut. Operation Fireside has placed recruits with South Jersey families during the holiday season since 1981. It allows recruits to celebrate the holiday with a host family while they’re separated from their loved ones during the rigorous basic training program.
“The love and support demonstrated by the Fireside host families this Thanksgiving will be something these recruits will remember long after they have graduated here.” said Capt. Todd Prestidge, commanding officer of Training Center Cape May. “Cape May is this service’s hometown, and the community is our extended family, so we are thankful this holiday season for that relationship.”
Operation Fireside has been coordinated annually by the American Red Cross Southern Shore Chapter in Cape May Court House, N.J., since the program started three decades ago. The Red Cross solicits and tracks volunteers and host families, while Training Center Cape May pairs each recruit with a family Thanksgiving Day.
The families and the recruits will meet at Training Center Cape May’s Guardian Chapel, and the recruits will be with the families until 8 p.m. While the recruits are off base, they will be allowed to eat as much as they want, call home, and relax before beginning training again that same day.
"American Red Cross Southern Shore Chapter considers it an honor to coordinate Operation Fireside with the Coast Guard Training Center each year,” said Carol Cohen, Executive Director, Southern Shore Chapter. “The host families generously open their homes and their hearts knowing that ‘serving our country’ often means the recruits are many miles from home and family on the holidays. The recruits get a taste of home surrounded by the warmth and hospitality of the host family. Operation Fireside offers everyone who participate a new reason to be thankful."
Training Center Cape May is the Coast Guard’s only enlisted basic training program, and more than 80 percent of the service’s workforce receives basic instruction here to become Coast Guardsmen. The recruits are trained in everything from fire arms familiarization to basic water survival.
Editor’s Note: Please click https://www.piersystem.com/go/doctype/4007/117375/ for a listing of the recruits’ hometowns. Recruits will be available for phone interviews with hometown media about Operation Fireside Tuesday and Wednesday. Please contact CWO John Edwards at O: 609-898-6362, or E: john.d.edwards@uscg.mil to schedule.