Alisyn Kandybowicz

Share your military spouse story:
My story as an Army military spouse started in 2018 when my knight in shining armor swept me off my feet and brought me along this crazy military spouse ride. That man has uplifted me and supported my crazy ideas over the past 5 years, which has allowed me to 1.) get through grad school (with three kids) in order to become a speech language pathologist, 2.) become the founder of an advocacy platform "Mission: Food Forest" for community gardens on military installations, and 3.) start my own private speech therapy practice, NatureTalks LLC. "Bloom Where You're Planted" is my life's motto and a mindset that has helped me thrive as a military spouse. For the past 10 years, anywhere I live, I use social horticulture as a way to uplift my community and build a like-minded tribe for myself and others. I love being known as "the garden lady" or as some have said the "dirt queen." As a garden does, community gardens attract the community pollinators- the people who make the community thrive. Out there, I have met the most incredible spouses, leaders, and community members while playing in the dirt. However, maybe most importantly, the garden is a space that my kids and I love going together. I love creating an accessible oasis that we can bring our children to to let them play in the mud and explore outdoors in nature. Many times, this isn't available to military families because we don't have the time during our transient moves to create or invest in gardens. Im done wiping out my beautiful backyard garden every 2 years to get it back to green space for housing. My investments and time go into the community garden where I know it can sustain and thrive through other spouses once I leave. A community garden/food forest is a symbol of a thriving community, and I want to create that beacon of support everywhere I go.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
I adore my military spouse family, and I love jumping in at a new duty station and asking where I'm needed. I was the 305th MI BN SFRG leader, 304th MI BN informal funds custodian, Fort Knox Spouses & Community Club Webmaster and 1st VP. However, the thing I am most proud of is being the Fort Knox Community Garden OPOC. When we PCS'd to Fort Knox 2022, I drove by an overgrown, abandoned garden and visions of the overwhelming potential flashed before my eyes. When I asked housing about it, they stated that they had plans to convert it back to greenspace since there was a lack of interest. I immediately created a plan and an SOP for the garden and presented it to KnoxHills housing and the Garrison PWRG, which was enthusiastically received. In one year, with the Mission:Food Forest concept, we shared over 225lbs of fresh garden produce with our military community, clocked over 821.5 VMIS hours as and organization, raised ~$11,000, and increased the garrison mNEAT community score by 114%!!

Describe your involvement in the military community:
The thing I love most about community gardens is that it is truly a community team building exercise. I made a list of every organization I could think of on post and brainstormed jobs to present to each organization that uplifted their mission. Girl scouts and cub scouts researched native pollinators, planted our pollinator garden, painted garden beds; boy scouts built accessible garden beds and our PVC pipe gardenfort; the 5 schools on post and 2 childcare centers had a competition to update our signs (voted on by the Garrison commander). The CDC painted rocks for the garden. The entire community submitted scarecrows for a scarecrow competition with awards given by the Garrison CSM. The power company mulched our surrounding trees and dropped wood chip mulch off for us. The spouse club gave us a grant for a swing. Knox Hills and Lendlease gave us a ~$3000 grant for supplies including 17 TONS of garden soil to fill our 16 garden beds built by spouses, soldiers, veterans and retirees.

Describe how you support your community:
Anyone who knows me knows that I am overtly passionate about three things: community, language/communication, and nature. And nature just easily brings the other two (community and communication) together. These are things that I just HAVE to do. My neurodiversity is that I obsessively think about these things. Gardening is therapeutic and relaxing for me, so I decide to do it in a way that I can share with others. It brings so much joy to my life that I have a personal mission to tell people about how much good it does for the community. Gardening teaches us so many life lessons and targets real problems like food insecurity. One story I must share is when a newly-wed, young family posted on the Fort Knox spouse FB page that they didn't have a car or their HHGs and needed food... I was ecstatic to be able to run to the garden and pick 3 lbs of green beans, zucchini, and tomatoes and drive it right down the street!

What do you advocate for? Why?
Aside from assisting families suffering from food insecurity through gardening education and produce sharing, another issue that I advocate for is inclusion for individuals with disabilities. I specifically advocate for inclusive outdoor spaces. An issue I see every day as a speech therapist is that military families have to uproot from their child's therapy services and local resources every 2-3 years. The children's garden at the Fort Knox Community Garden was a beacon of support to families and children with special needs and individuals with limited mobility. We received a $500 grant for a 4ft x 5ft Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) board that we put in the children's garden to make it an inclusive and inviting space for military children who are nonverbal or have complex communication needs. The local clinic I worked at, EICS, donated ~$500 in nature play and gardenfort materials as an outreach to families who need ST, OT, PT, ABA, and mental health services.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
To spread the message of my platform, I created the "Mission: Food Forest" platform on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn because people HAD to see what all of these awesome volunteers were doing out at the garden!! We made fun reels/posts to highlight the mud kitchen and the gardenfort at our children's garden, we hosted garden markets, a garden harvest picnic at the end of the garden season and kids made fresh garden caprese salads on our family style picnic table (created by a veteran owned small business). Now, in 2024 my private practice, NatureTalks LLC, will be hosting free nature-based bilingual (Spanish/English) language enrichment playgroups at the Fort Knox Community Garden's Children's Garden (inspired by Bernheim Forest's Playcosystem). The purpose of the playgroups are to demonstrate the incredible power that nature has to enrich our children's language abilities through sensory play, creativity, imagination, and observation.

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
First and foremost, I am so honored to be considered for this prestigious award! I want others to see that a tiny community garden can make a huge impact. I would use this platform to connect as many military installations as possible to the "Mission: Food Forest" platform for collaboration and hopefully turn it into a nonprofit to grant money to them. Not only is a community garden incredibly valuable to garrisons, especially if you are conducting the annual "Military Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool" (mNEAT) survey at your installations, but it presents a collaborative environment for all organizations and individuals on the installation. Learning about food and gardening education is a small but mighty first step to targeting food insecurity among our military families. The connections that are made at a community garden beacon further support the information dispersement for health services available to our military families to help ease transitions to new duty station.