(Seguin) — The local unit of the Guadalupe Valley Young Marines is on its way to being recognized at the Pentagon.
The U.S. Department of Defense has chosen the Guadalupe Valley Young Marines as the winner of one of its elite awards. The local youth organization has been selected as the 2022 Secretary of Defense Fulcrum Shield Award winner.
Photo courtesy Dina Dillon
Excited to learn the news is Unit Commander Dina Dillon. Dillon says this is the first time that the Young Marines has won this prestigious award. She says the local unit’s efforts rose to the top of the list – edging out hundreds and hundreds of other similar organizations across the country.
“We are expected out of all the 253 units in the United States of Young Marines to put together a package of what we did for Red Ribbon Week. I have done this several years now to show pictures and show exactly the kinds of things we have done and how we have touched the community. For instance here in Seguin, we’ve been able to talk the mayor into lighting the water tower red and doing ribbons downtown, Central Park with notification of exactly why we did it for Red Ribbon Week. From that, we put together a package. We send it up to our headquarters. Our headquarters receives all of the packets and they review and choose only three to be submitted to the Department of Defense. At the Department of Defense, they are actually reviewing and looking at sea cadets, civil air patrol, ROTC programs across the nation and these three packages from the Young Marines program. From that, only one is chosen and this year, we were the ones that were chosen.
Dillon says although the local youth organization has always received national recognition, this award no doubt tops the list.
“It is just unbelievable how excited I am because it shows that this little town of Seguin, the small unit of Guadalupe Valley — that we are making an impact and we are being seen for doing that. In year’s past, there has been larger groups that were chosen. The Young Marines program, itself, has had a unit chosen for the last 12 years and so that has been amazing that our program as a whole has been chosen so many times but for Seguin to be chosen, it has just been amazing for our program,” said Dillon.
Dina says although the COVID pandemic has impacted its membership numbers, the group has not stopped making a difference and continues to improve lives.
“We have built on and built on and built on. You start off with just trying to talk at school to now what we’ve done is this year, it will be our third year that we are working with the American Legion Motorcycle Riders and putting on an actual motorcycle run and it’s in honor of Kiki Camarena — is what Red Ribbon Week was started for and so it’s the Kiki Camarena Run, Ride to Be Drug Free. This will be the third year and it’s working together with all of our veteran organizations here in town. They help us. Throughout the year, we help them and they’ve been coming to us — helping us with our annual fundraiser that we’ve turned this in to and it’s fun for them, fun for us,” said Dillon.
Four winners were announced as part of the 32nd annual Secretary of Defense Community Drug Awareness Award while only one winner – the Guadalupe Valley Young Marines here in Seguin, again, was the lone recipient of the Fulcrum Shield Award.
Those named as the 2022 Department of Defense Red Ribbon award winners include the United States Army and its army substance abuse program at Garrison Ft. Hood; the Marine Corps and its Drug Demand Reduction Program at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, San Diego; the United States Air Force and its Drug Demand Reduction Program at Headquarters 19th Airlift Wing, Little Rock and the National Guard and its Florida National Guard Counterdrug Program Demand Reduction Outreach.
As part of the honor, representatives from the local unit of the Guadalupe Valley Young Marines will be honored on Oct. 13 in the Hall of Heroes located at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.