Chris Callen recognized for his support of ONG

The Callen Foun­da­tion is hon­ored as being the first rec­og­nized mem­ber of the Com­mu­nity Covenant pro­gram, devel­oped by the Ohio National Guard Fam­ily Readi­ness and War­rior Sup­port Pro­gram at the Regional Inter Ser­vice Fam­ily Assis­tance Com­mit­tee (RISFAC) meet­ing in Colum­bus. Cap­tain Doug Franz, State Fam­ily Pro­gram Direc­tor, made the recog­ni­tion to Chris Callen, founder of the Callen Foun­da­tion, for his con­tin­ued sup­port and gen­eros­ity that has helped Ohio National Guard Sol­diers over the past year.

The Callen Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in West­er­ville by Chris and Lynn Callen for the pur­pose of rais­ing funds to help Ohio mil­i­tary fam­i­lies in need. Chris, a Mans­field native, is a U.S. Army and Viet­nam vet­eran, where he served as an Infantry­man. He is also the State Com­man­der of the Ohio Com­bat Infantrymen’s Asso­ci­a­tion and an Honor Guard mem­ber and bugler of VFW Post 8736 in Sunbury.

Recently The Callen Foun­da­tion, while work­ing closely with the Ohio National Guard Troop and Fam­ily Assis­tance Cen­ter (TFAC), assisted sev­eral sol­diers with rental pay­ments to pre­vent pos­si­ble evic­tions. The Callen Foun­da­tion also pro­vided assis­tance to a widow of a ser­vice mem­ber who was strug­gling finan­cially fol­low­ing the death of her husband.

TFAC’s are respon­si­ble for locat­ing local com­mu­nity part­ners who are will­ing to pro­vide sup­port to Ser­vice Mem­bers with a need. Typ­i­cal requests include: rent assis­tance, util­ity pay­ments, med­ical assis­tance and vehi­cle repairs. The Com­mu­nity Covenant pro­gram was devel­oped as a way to for­mally rec­og­nize com­mu­nity part­ners and orga­ni­za­tions that pro­vide assis­tance or dis­counts to Ser­vice Mem­bers on a con­tin­ual basis.

A detailed overview of The Callen Foun­da­tion can be found on the foun­da­tion web­site < thecallenfoundation.com >. Pub­lic dona­tions to the Callen Foun­da­tion can be made through the foun­da­tion website.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.