The new Military Spouse of the Year says her goal over the next year will be to help others advance their own projects while helping them connect with their communities.
Natasha Harth, a Marine Corps spouse based in the Washington, D.C. area was named Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year at a May 5 event at Fort Meyer, Virginia.
“I want to encourage other people to get involved in their community, to reach out to others, to network,” she told me during a recent interview. “I’d like to highlight different organizations that are out there to help others -- take my spotlight and shine it on other people that I feel are doing great job and can be great resources.”
Hall is the brains and power behind several organizations herself. Until recently she was the manager at the local Air Force Officer Spouse Thrift Store, which not only serves the community as a store, but also helps raise funds for scholarships on the Air Force base. She left that job this month to take a position working on the Army’s transition assistance program with a Defense contractor. She also started a dynamic non-profit, Be a Blessing D.C., which does homeless outreach.
Natasha said she feels a responsibility to the military spouse community to be a good role model for what an involved military spouse can do.
“It definitely puts a thought in your head that, well, I have this title – what do I do with it? How do I do it justice?” she said. “It gives you a sense of responsibility to be a good role model, to be a good networker. Even though I may not be an expert in someone’s specific field, I’ll try to get them resources.”
Natasha said she knows military life isn’t always rainbows and sunshine, but she does try to remain positive. That’s something, she says, walking through tough times has taught her to do.
“Throughout our military walk we haven’t been burned by the fire. We came out stronger,” she said. “This is not a pretty life, it’s not glamorous, sometimes it’s hard. When you embrace the hard and then try to focus on the small things, the everyday things, you get by.”
