Cristina Yee

Share your military spouse story:
I'm a Coast Guard spouse of 3 years. I am a friend to many, lover of hospitality, an avid gardener, and a big fan of the great outdoors. I’m resilient, adaptable, dedicated, independent, supportive and resourceful. My husband, an Active Duty Coast Guardsman, AST2 Matthew Yee, and I fell in love in 2010, during our college years & we’ve been inseperable eversince. We married in the summer of 2017 and our honeymoon was our first official PCS together across country to then fly to Air Station Borinquen in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico! Since becoming a Military Spouse our journey has taught me many things I didn’t imagine needing to learn all in one tour about just how resourceful I could be! We endured many trials with the Hurricane season of 2017. This was our first experience with hurricanes, Puerto Rico, and what it meant to be a part of the military during a natural disaster. The trials and challenges of this time in Puerto Rico have been many and we could not have endured theses times without the support of our military spouse community. What has been the most joyful in this season is the opportunity for philanthropy. The Lord put on my heart within hours of Hurricane Irma that my time in Puerto Rico would not be the honeymoon I had envisioned. The call to help was far too great. I began scouring every opportunity to contribute via supplies to anyone affected by Hurricane Irma. From there Hurricane Maria introduced us to an even greater need to serve our community and the ball hasn’t stopped rolling since. So I fill my days with philanthropy, service, and lots of fun. That has been the, "day if the life" for me as a military spouse so far and I cannot wait to see where this journey continues to take me. We love our life with the Coast Guard and could not imagine it any other way.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
My most prominent example of leadership I would have to say has been my involvement with the local farm share program. Each week I have a team of volunteers that I lead who help me make the entire farm share market a possibility! Week after week the military spouse volunteers show up to lend their hands and participate in this wonderful program that brings fresh fruits and vegetables to our military families. Without these volunteers none of this would be possible.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
I am an advocate for local agriculture of Puerto Rico, supporting local Orphanges and co-leading the Youth Group for our church. I volunteer my time weekly assisting the local farms here with creating a marketplace for them to source to our millitary community. Every week I network with local farmers to bring their harvest to our military families ensuring that the farmers are keeping food on their tables as well as ours. Every Sunday afternoon my husbnad and I lead the Youth Group, ages 13-18. We do a variety of activities that range of Bible lessons, games, fun activities in the community as well as community service projects. Another big project I have become incredibly passionate about is an annual fundraiser to support the local orphans at Christmas time with gifts. This fundraiser is organized by myself but fully supported my the local military families, meaning we could not accomplish this without them!

Describe how you support your community:
There are two ways that I most frequently support our military community. The first is what we call "BQN CSA". BQN stands for Borinquen (the name of our Airstation) and CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. This program in essentially a farmers market that takes place every Wednesday and is made available for all Active Duty Coast Guard families, as well as members of Active Duty services branches also stationed in the area. This program allows for local farmers to share their freshly harvested produce with the military community, ensuring they have a consistent marketplace and ensuring that our families are being provided with healthy food options. This program has been incredibly successful & well loved by everyone involved! The second way I support our community is through my service with the Youth Group at our Military Chapel. We have been serving in this way for 2 years and have loved every minute. The opportunity to connect teens to Christ has been incredible.

What do you advocate for? Why?
The platform I advocate for is food security. After Hurricane Maria it became very clear to me that our resources were limited and that I needed to ensure a way that in the event of another natural disaster that we would feel much more prepared. This is where the idea for BQN CSA was born. I realized that part of the reason we didn't have fresh food was because all of the local farms had been so devastated that they could not even afford to replant their fields. I decided I needed to help them and over time our support has lead to these farms not only fully recovering but also being able to expand and hire on more staff. It has been a gift and a blessing for everyone involved. Inspiring farmers to keep farming and providing our military community with the bounty of this island has been so rewarding, a platform that I will stand by for a lifetime. Food security ranks high in my values so supporting local farmers is one of the best ways I can be sure to stand by this pillar.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
The way I spread this message is word of mouth, utilization of social media, and a weekly email newsletters to our military community. Week by week I share stories from our local farms, share photos of their farms, and share recipes to inspire our community regarding ways to use unique ingredients that may appear in their farm share. I offer the opportunity to go and visit these farms and learn more about the behind the scenes events that take place before their food makes it to their dinner table. We have quite the network of farmers now and the opportunities to spread our message continues to expand as more and more people hear about this project. I will say without the opportunity to share our message through our local spouse Facebook page that this program would not have been nearly as successful! We have a website as well that allows the military families to order their groceries from the comfort of home, hopefully simplifies things for busy moms & AD members!

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
With this title I purely hope to accomplish one thing, the opportunity to share my story in a way that inspires other to be bold and do something that they're passionate about in their community. What makes a new place feel like home is when you get out and become a contributing member of the community, leaving it better than you found it. Whether philanthropy, small business, being a teacher, coach, or someone's best friend, my hope is that my story will inspire boldness and confidence to get out there and make a difference. You never know how your actions will impact others even years down the road. I hope that my actions now are planting seeds that will inspire others to care about where their food comes from and care about their health on a deeper level, whatever that looks like for them. I hope that people will hear my story and think, I can do something like this or simply be inspired to start a project that gives back in a way they never imagined possible.