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Building base, community relations

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Diana M. Cossaboom
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  The Air Force Community Partnership Program, a program funded and ran by the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Energy, held their third meeting with Team Shaw officials and community officials, Feb. 9 at the Swan Lake Community Center, Sumter, S.C.

Throughout the program, there will be six meetings held to generate, propose, and put into motion partnership ideas between the base and community.

"The program seeks to facilitate new and creative ways of doing business where installations, state and local communities or commercial entities share or combine resources to create mutual value and benefit," said Maj. John Kendall, 20th Contracting Squadron commander and Shaw Air Force Base lead for the AFCCP.

Currently, there are 52 bases involved in AFCCP.

The most recent meeting included presentations of the 17 partnership ideas, where two were combined into one partnership concept, eight were determined to be "quick wins" for immediate implementation, and five of the longer-term partnership concepts were driven into formation of workgroups to further explore the concept and work details on the way forward, said Kendall.

Some of the ideas that were selected include formalizing and expanding the mutual aid agreement between both the base security forces and fire department and community police and fire departments, sharing community and base event information, and implementation of a base and community internship program.

The partnership concepts that were not advanced during the meeting will be saved for consideration in future interactions between the base and community.

"What is most important is that we have spent the time together these few months building partnerships and building relationships," said Col. Stephen Jost, 20th Fighter Wing commander.

Jost continued to say how important it is to not only build these relationships, but maintain them after the program is done.

"It goes without saying that there are extremely close ties between both Shaw and Sumter." said Kendall. "And Sumter provides exceptional support to the military community and Shaw Air Force Base. Given the potential offered in the new legislation, it makes sense to work together to take advantage of opportunities, unique skill sets and equipment, and the best practices that we each possess."