Danielle M Crane

Share your military spouse story:
In late 2015 my husband SSG Crane joined the U.S ARMY as an Infantryman. We have two PCS moves, one to the 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks Hawaii and another to the 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson CO. I have two boys, Anthony who is 8 years old and Jaxon, who is 6 years old. My family is the reason why I have the motivation and my passion I do for helping others. I currently volunteer with multiple non-profit organizations; Giving Tuesday Military Colorado, Feeding America, Kiwanis Fountain Valley, Solid Rock Community Food Pantry, Sunny Side Market under Care and Share for Southern Colorado Food Bank, Cross Creek BMX, and Operation Homefront. Some of these organizations have taken me to Washington D.C and Chicago to be a speaker at the conventions where I was given a stage to be a proud voice for our Military Families.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
I am an ambassador for the Giving Tuesday Military Colorado team here in the Colorado Springs area. I was given the platform to work along side Kiwanis International as apart of the Fountain Valley Satellite and The City of Fountain's, Miracle On Main Street. With a great passion I serve as part of the Cross Creek BMX leadership team provide recreational support to our youth. I am a key caller with our SFRG and have worked to help coordinate private events such as collaborating with Operation Deploy Your Dress at Fort Carson to host our SFRG shopping extravaganza. My most passionate roles as a leader has been a Food Insecurities Ambassador where I voice the concerns of what our military families face fighting hunger. This role took me to Washington, DC as apart of Care and Share for Southern Colorado and Chicago with Feeding America. The next stop was being a voice for Proposition FF; FREE SCHOOL MEALS OR ALL CHILDREN IN COLORADO. It was just passed as a GO, in the Fall of 2022.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
My involvement within our community has varied greatly from helping organize volunteer support for state wide events, stack food pantry distributions with volunteers, collect holiday toys traveling hundreds of miles, distributing school supplies, and raising my voice to battle food insecurities within our community. My greatest role in giving back was being apart of Operation Homefront’s volunteer team as well Solid Rock Community Development, when we distributed over 2,000 Thanksgiving Meals across the community. I have never been a one man team and have had amazing volunteers standing beside me ready and willing to do whatever it takes to support our deserving community. As a mentor, leader and Military Spouse in our community, I found great success in helping establish volunteer support right away for multiple Military and Civilian based Organizations collaborating with them for a greater cause. Working with one another has been vital to both our military and civilian community.

Describe how you support your community:
By working along side multiple organizations like; Operation Homefront, Pikes Peak AUSA Family Programs, Kiwanis International Colorado Springs and the Fountain Valley Satellite Chapter, Care and Share Food Banks for Southern Colorado, Solid Rock Community Development food pantry, Cross Creek BMX, and Giving Tuesday Military Colorado. I have been given a way to help unify support more readily by way of volunteerism in our community. I helped organize youth programs by picking up and sorting hundreds of school supplies with them from Dollar Tree during our BTS Brigade program with Operation Homefront. Then helped collect holiday toys and food donations, in order to support troops and their families during the holidays. My most exciting adventure was helping give back on Giving Tuesday Military 2022 by collaborating with Sunny Side Market in Fountain with fellow Military Spouses and volunteers in order to give back to the local community and fight hunger.

What do you advocate for? Why?
Universal support for Military Families, IS A MUST! One of the biggest challenges I have see among our families is the continuity and availability of services from one location to the next. There is a blatant lack of services across the board which makes me confused as to why one instillation would offer a service for free or at a lower cost but a base right down the road would have no clue what those programs were or what the services provided. This continuity would open doors to improving our communities by helping make support universal. I believe every Military Installations faces food insecurities and is one of our biggest challenges. Every state may have a local Food Bank, that does not guarantee support to many communities. We need to a way to help provide these resources among our families coming out of one of the hardest struggle we have been faced with; COVID! Food hunger and mental illness go hand and hand. So we need all hands on deck for support.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
I have used a great deal of social media to help inform those in our community of what is happening. Providing flyers, emails, word of mouth and often times in a moments notice picking up the phone and making the call to inform others of what is happening in our community. I am only one voice, however; as a team we have become a force of service. We are stronger together and sometimes unstoppable. I have made sure I am in the community and as visible as I can be in order to allow others the opportunity to engage in too supporting their local community both Civilian and Military.

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
I want to work together to educate, collaborate and continue building on programs already in place? We are so much stronger in numbers and numbers show results. If we found a way to collectively work with all the resources the military has available, we can help alleviate some of the difficult challenges military members and their families face. We have to believe the resources we have could be optimized by more collaboration and unification throughout ALL military installations. We have so many great programs that could work together to provide a ‘one stop shop’ without having to start over every time a Service Member or family moves. I would love to be apart of a movement which allows us to use these resources as one! We really are better together.