FORT KNOX, Ky. — With more than 1,500 accumulated hours of volunteer service over the past year, Fort Knox youth Maribel Sikes recently earned top recognition as the 2024 Operation Homefront Military Child of the Year for the U.S. Army.
In 2024, Sikes racked up service hours with various initiatives at Camp Zama, Japan before she and her family moved to Fort Knox in July of that year. Upon her arrival to Kentucky, Sikes found new volunteer opportunities on post and in the surrounding community.
Sikes said volunteer service has always been a consistent presence in her life.
“My family has always prioritized serving our community,” said Sikes. “Communities do so much for a person, from encouraging them to being there for them when things do not work out, but communities also need people who can support them.”
Sikes said she began volunteering on her own shortly before turning 15 and put a specific focus on encouraging others to serve and make a difference in their communities.
“Maribel is a trailblazer,” said Sikes’ father, Lt. Col. Nicholas Sikes, human resource manager at Colonel’s Management Office, U.S. Army Human Resources Command. “She doesn’t stop with just serving by herself; she believes strongly in empowering others to serve their best as well.”
Sikes has collected a wide range of volunteer service experience in support of her communities.
During her time in Japan, she was named Camp Zama’s 2024 Teen Volunteer of the Year, earned a gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award for civil service, and founded and acted as president of the Camp Zama American Red Cross Juniors Club where she organized and oversaw various projects. Initiatives she led include heat awareness presentations to the community, collecting and shipping over 500 donated items to deployed Soldiers, and hosting single-Soldier movie and game nights during the holidays.
She also organized and led an ongoing story-time initiative for preschool children, a summer reading program, a teen book club and an adult Japanese art class at the Camp Zama library. She accumulated more than 700 volunteer hours at the library.
“Volunteering at the library [in Japan] was one of my favorite things to do,” said Sikes. “I loved watching the joy on a child’s face when they read a sentence for the first time. Seeing their joy over being around books made it worth every minute.”
Since her family moved to Fort Knox, Sikes has become the Youth Leadership Hardin County Program leader – she is the first and only homeschool student in the program. She is also a Fort Knox American Red Cross Warrior Warehouse Program youth head volunteer, founder and acting president for the Fort Knox American Red Cross Juniors Club, and a regular volunteer at Barr Memorial Library.
May Giulitto, director of Service to the Armed Forces/International Services for the Kentucky Region, said Sikes found her way to the Fort Knox American Red Cross within two weeks of her arrival to the installation. She immediately began building the Fort Knox American Red Cross Juniors Club, the first of its kind in Kentucky.
Under her leadership, the Fort Knox American Red Cross Juniors Club held a veterans game day at the Radcliff Veterans Center, presented for the International Humanitarian Law Youth Action Campaign as a Fort Knox American Red Cross initiative and is currently planning a family formal day to celebrate military children in May.
“Maribel’s dedication to serving her community and furthering the mission of the American Red Cross is inspiring,” said Giulitto. “Not only does she serve, but she continually inspires others to serve alongside her, offering mentorship, encouragement and training to anyone willing to serve.
“Maribel continues to amaze me with her service-oriented life.”
Sikes said she has discovered more about her new home through volunteering and how best to serve the community.
In addition to traditional community service, Sikes is also part of the Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) ‘Be a PAL (Protect a Life)’ Program, where she participates in monthly “Teen Talks” for teenagers with food allergies. Sikes said she and some of her four siblings live with severe food allergies, making food allergy education a personal initiative to her.
During her time volunteering with a local Vacation Bible School, she used FARE lessons to help coordinate safe snacks and food allergy education tools for the children.
She is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Sikes said she wants to study supply chain management in college to ensure allergy-friendly foods are properly distributed to those who need them. One reason motivates her to keep doing it.
“Volunteering has allowed me to become the best person I can be, the person I want to be,” said Sikes. “I serve because others have served me.”
Visit Fort Knox News at www.army.mil/knox for all of Central Kentucky's latest military news and information.
| Date Taken: | 04.03.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.03.2025 13:44 |
| Story ID: | 494498 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 30 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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