Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- Hill Air Force Base volunteers tackle military family food insecurity, impacting 25.3%.
- Sharaya Woodwick leads efforts at Airman's Attic, providing free essentials to families.
- The attic has fed 3,700 families and repurposed 21,000 items; community support is crucial for its success.
OGDEN — A team of volunteers and one woman, in particular, are being celebrated at Hill Air Force Base after working for years to combat the surprising rate of food insecurity among military families.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture report from April 2024 found that 25.3% of the military population experienced food insecurity, compared to 10.1% of the civilian adult population, drawing from 2018 and 2020 data. The report also found 10.5% of the military population had very low food security in the same time periods, compared with 3.6% of the civilian adult population.
Those most at risk were families who joined in the past decade, those who had a permanent change in station in the past two years, families with children under 18, and active duty families.
Sharaya Woodwick is the manager of the Airman's Attic at Hill. It is a thrift store and food pantry, but everything is free. In February, she was voted the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year on base for her efforts to help families in need.
As part of her role, Woodwick leads food and diaper distribution events, coordinates with local community leaders and manages regular volunteers and a board of seven to keep donations coming in. "We don't get any funding," she told KSL.com, saying it's "150%, absolutely" a labor of love for the team.
"A big thing that we address is the interim of (permanent change in station) moves," Woodwick said. "If you're moving from overseas to stateside, you generally go two to three months without your belongings." It can be even longer at times — one family moving to Hill recently had their shipping container stolen in transit.
"I think, that the misconception is that maybe it's only lower-enlisted that are affected by food insecurity," Woodwich said. "But that is not the case. Food insecurity happens. Life happens, regardless of rank."
One of the first things she did when taking over the Airman's Attic almost three years ago was remove rank restrictions on people seeking help.
The organization has a walk-in food pantry, so any ID holder can come in and get a grocery bag of food. They also can give referrals to another pantry, so families can get one bag of food per person in the household every two weeks, along with a gift card to the commissary on base for perishable foods.
Woodwick's husband, Tech. Sgt. Tyler Woodwick, told KSL.com that his wife "resurrected the food pantry here by making that connection with the commissary."
As a result, around 3,700 families have been fed — 2,000 in the last year alone — and 21,000 household items have been repurposed, according to Hill Air Force Base.
The Woodwicks got involved in the Airman's Attic, which exists at some other bases, when they faced food insecurity during their first duty station at the Royal Air Force Lakenheath base in England. "We were an (Airman First Class pay scale), and there are so many expenses that come with moving, and neither one of us had even had a credit card, right? We were very much growing up in a brand new lifestyle, and so I felt horrible about not providing and not contributing," Sharaya Woodwick said.
When budget sequestration in 2013 took effect, an across-the-board reduction in federal agency budgets triggered a government shutdown, and their family "went about a month without a paycheck," according to Sharaya Woodwick. "We had no money. We were in the same boat as every other military family on that face. We were not an exception. That was a really long time to go without a paycheck."
It was the food pantry on base that allowed families to pool resources to make family dinners and get by.
"It's such a powerful tool to give military spouses that they can still help provide for their families in that way," she said. "There shouldn't be any shame in needing a leg up every now and again. We're just trying to help eliminate the stigma of that statistic."
The community is a huge part of the success of Hill's program, and the efforts are reciprocal, according to the Woodwicks. A team of volunteers helps run the store, pick up donations off base, sort the donations and give anything that can't be stored to homeless shelters, foster care shelters, women's homes and more. Extra food that can't be used at the pantry gets delivered to the nearby Lantern House and a food bank in Coalville.
A number of community organizations have made a large impact, going on Costco runs and organizing fundraisers, including the Wolf Creek Foundation, American Legion, the Layton Rotary Club, the Little Lambs Foundation and more.
Sharaya Woodwick says the Attic is always "in dire need" of shoes, kitchen gear, cooking sets, uniforms, small appliances, vacuums and children's clothes. They are always running out of trash bags, duct tape, packing tape and zip ties.
"The donations are always given to people without an expectation of them returning any of those items. So you take what you need and give back what you don't need," she said.
They can't accept beds, bed frames or couches, as they get destroyed by the "beloved" resident raccoon named Ronnie, the group's unofficial mascot, and a gang of cats on base.
Those wanting to make donations can contact the Airman's Attic at Hill on Facebook.
As for Sharay Woodwick, she will be going to Washington D.C. in May for the Armed Forces Insurance military spouse week, where she hopes to network with spouses from other bases, share best practices and get advice on starting or expanding the service to other locations.
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