{"id":428706,"date":"2025-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=428706"},"modified":"2025-04-28T14:57:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:57:36","slug":"kinderfest-brings-laughs-smiles-community-to-hohenfels-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=428706","title":{"rendered":"Kinderfest brings laughs, smiles, community to Hohenfels Families"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n USAG BAVARIA – HOHENFELS, Germany — In foreground, from left, Hunter, Aydan and Stetson O’Donnell sit in one of the Falcon Team’s helicopters. Families with children visited Kinderfest April 26, 2025 at the School Age Center at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria – Hohenfels. Child and Youth Services at Hohenfels coordinated between many different on-post organizations to provide a fun day for children as well as an opportunity for parents to meet with one another and those who provide services to their Families. (U.S. Army photo by Bryan Gatchell, USAG Bavaria Public Affairs)
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\n USAG BAVARIA – HOHENFELS, Germany — Families with children visited Kinderfest April 26, 2025 at the School Age Center at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria – Hohenfels. Child and Youth Services at Hohenfels coordinated between many different on-post organizations to provide a fun day for children as well as an opportunity for parents to meet with one another and those who provide services to their Families. (U.S. Army photo by Bryan Gatchell, USAG Bavaria Public Affairs)
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\n USAG BAVARIA – HOHENFELS, Germany — Families with children visited Kinderfest April 26, 2025 at the School Age Center at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria – Hohenfels. Child and Youth Services at Hohenfels coordinated between many different on-post organizations to provide a fun day for children as well as an opportunity for parents to meet with one another and those who provide services to their Families. (U.S. Army photo by Bryan Gatchell, USAG Bavaria Public Affairs)
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\n USAG BAVARIA – HOHENFELS, Germany — Peter Karl, fire inspector at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria – Hohenfels, helps a young community member knock tennis balls off traffic cones with the spray from a fire hose. Families with children visited Kinderfest April 26, 2025 at the School Age Center at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria – Hohenfels. Child and Youth Services at Hohenfels coordinated between many different on-post organizations to provide a fun day for children as well as an opportunity for parents to meet with one another and those who provide services to their Families. (U.S. Army photo by Bryan Gatchell, USAG Bavaria Public Affairs)
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USAG BAVARIA \u2013 HOHENFELS, Germany \u2013 The fields next to the School Age Center buzzed with activities as on-post children, accompanied by their Families, ran, bounced, played lawn games and much more during Kinderfest April 26, 2025.<\/p>\n

To celebrate military children and to cap off April as \u201cMonth of the Military Child,\u201d U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria hosted the event so organizations from across the Hohenfels community could show their support to Soldiers and their Families.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been the perfect example of the community coming together to celebrate our children, our Families, offering games, activities, food and fun,\u201d said Beth Payne, Child and Youth Services coordinator at Hohenfels.<\/p>\n

The Joint Multinational Readiness Center\u2019s Falcon team brought a helicopter so parents could photograph their children inside. The military police Soldiers put \u201cdrunk goggles\u201d on children so they could try to stumble from traffic cone to traffic cone in a small obstacle course. The fire prevention team from the Directorate of Emergency Services set up several games, including one where children could use small fire hoses to knock down targets. Outdoor Recreation hosted an archery range. The Hohenfels Veterinary Clinic taught children how to check for a dog\u2019s pulse on a training dummy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHohenfels is special because it\u2019s such a close-knit community, and everyone pulls together to pull this event off,\u201d Payne added.<\/p>\n

Christine McConnell, Parent and Outreach Services director, helped organize the event. She said it was apparent the people who make up all the supporting organizations care for children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look around at these organizations, they may not have direct child customers, but they have Family customers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This is McConnell\u2019s 10th year in the Hohenfels community, and she has worked to improve the event year after year. One big change was using the parking lot across from the fields to host even more tenant units\u2019 military vehicles.<\/p>\n

Also this year, children from the Grafenwoehr, Vilseck and Ansbach communities were also on hand as Child and Youth Services sports volleyball, soccer and baseball home games took place at Hohenfels.<\/p>\n

\u201cApril is one month that we focus on celebrating military children and children of the community, but CYS celebrates military children every day,\u201d said Sharon Glazeski, deputy director of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation at Hohenfels.<\/p>\n

Aydan and Hunter O\u2019Donnell have lived in the community since January, and they brought their son Stetson out to the event, where they set him into the Falcon\u2019s helicopter and took photos of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it would be a cool opportunity to bring Stetson out and explore, figure out what it\u2019s all about,\u201d said Aydan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been one of the first days of good weather that we\u2019ve had,\u201d said Hunter. \u201cIt\u2019s been nice to get out of the house and enjoy this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter O\u2019Donnell, notably, is a member of the Falcon team, and he was happy to show his son around his unit\u2019s helicopter.<\/p>\n

Not only was this an opportunity for Families to get to meet face to face the personnel of different organizations, this was an opportunity for Families to meet with one another, for children to bounce in large inflatables together, for parents to have a chat with one another.<\/p>\n

Marissa Lopez, a Family member and frequent volunteer with on-post scouting organizations, enjoyed the time with her Family. Her children visited with Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, who brough their vehicles and weapons systems out.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we weren\u2019t able to walk around because we were at the Cub Scout station,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cThis year thankfully other leaders were able to stay there, so we were able to hit all the spots. The kids love it. You can\u2019t get the free items away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about Child and Youth Services, visit https:\/\/hohenfels.armymwr.com\/categories\/cys-services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 USAG BAVARIA – HOHENFELS, Germany — In foreground, from left, Hunter, Aydan and Stetson O’Donnell sit in one of the Falcon Team’s helicopters. Families with children visited Kinderfest April 26, 2025 at the School Age Center at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria – Hohenfels. Child and Youth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428708,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428713,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428706\/revisions\/428713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/428708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}