Marissa Mae Kurth

Share your military spouse story:
My husband and I started dating in 2010, in the summer before our Senior year of High School. We married in December of 2011, just after tech school had ended for my husband. We moved to Minot, North Dakota and soon began our lives by having our first son in 2013. I worked at the BX and met my forever friends, who we still talk to this day, even with the many moves and miles apart. I volunteered at the Airman's attic and would make meals for spouses I had heard who had babies. In 2015, I had our second son while my husband was deployed to Afghanistan. He returned to us when our youngest was 4 months old and left for a year long tour to Korea the day our son turned 9 months old. We went to stay with family in Arizona to have added support and followed on by meeting my wonderful husband at our new duty station, Guam. I volunteered as a cheer coach at the High School and helped with families who spouses deployed. In 2018 my husband once again left to a humanitarian purpose in Saipan, from the Typhoon. We soon welcomed our daughter in 2019 and finally moved to Davis Monthan AFB in 2020. I welcomed new neighbors with cookies and warmth. I helped create meals for sick people on base and then my husband told me a bout being a Key Spouse. I am currently enrolled in online college, working at my kids school, and being a Key Spouse. I want to show my support , love, and dedication to not only myself, my family, but anyone I can. I am working my kids school to have all of the children participate in making cards and letters for our deployed troops for the holiday season. To instill love and joy in the hearts of others and to help teach my little ones to love others is the goal I have for my military spouse story of my life.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
Some leadership experiences I have done in my military community is creating a back to school bash for our military families and kids in our squadron. I have coordinated the ordering and organizing of books and teddy bears that were graciously donated by different organization, for our deployers children. Coordinating Easter egg hunts with squadron leadership for the community. Baked and delivered cookies for every member in the squadron. Leading by example the passion and desire to help others has brought my own children to want to help others in our community by cleaning our neighborhood and helping others. I love helping our military community and will strive to lead others in joining to help other experience the joy of our military community.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
My involvement in my military community is being a Key spouse and supporting our families. I give rides to and from school for military children, especially to those who have parents deployed and need added support. Offering house cleaning and/or meals for new incoming families staying in TLF. Even before I was a Key Spouse I was always involved in my community because I want my community to be better and to feel as though we would have a family everywhere we moved to. Moving is hard because life restarts but making cookies, offering rides, helping a neighbor, supporting others when times are hard are how I stay involved with my community. I enjoy every moment of being involved and participating in events or volunteer opportunities because it not only betters my own self but also betters my community. I have also been a unit representative for base townhalls, providing valuable input of military family needs and requests to the forefront of leadership's attention.

Describe how you support your community:
I support my community with my actions, words, and passion. Supporting my community through my actions, I have helped new mothers, involved others to support our community, eased the burden of deployment's on families and military members. I show support through my words when I keep in contact with spouses who are experiencing a deployment for the first time or the millionth time, we all need support and validation of struggles. Hearing another person say "I hear you and I am here for you" is important because words have meaning. I want the people I engage with to know I truly am here to support them not only with words but with follow through and with the passion and drive to help. I never want someone to feel as though supporting them is a job but rather a privilege and a joy that they trust me to give them support the need to get through good and bad times of life. Supporting someone can turn into a life long friendship.

What do you advocate for? Why?
I advocate for the importance of having a Key Spouse available for all parts of life in the military. A Key Spouse is there to support our military members family while they are away or at home. We are there to be a friend, family, and/ or confidante when our biological families are far away. I advocate for this because I have seen the impact being a Key Spouse can make and have experienced the love and support they offer. I want to show the joy and amazement this program can offer and to bridge the gap between spouse and military. We are all in this fight together and a strong system at home gives the miliary member the confidence to do their job while they are away. I want this program to grow more and more and to have outlets so Key Spouses have support to be able to give support. I want to advocate for the mission of helping our military families in all areas and being able to give them the information of key outlets to improve the quality of this life.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
I spread this message of improving the Key Spouse Program by attending different events to see what works for other Key Spouses. I have created events to get people to join in the program and/or want a Key Spouse to assist them. I constantly reach out to military members to get the message of unity out there so they will feel comfortable involving their spouses in events when they are away. I love spreading the message of the benefits and joy this program brings to me and my life. I get to share the joys of things that make my life easier and receive advice and friendship when struggles hit. We grow stronger from struggles because we learn how to better improve and being able to spread my message to other spouses helps not only me and my family but others to grow.

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
If I were to win AFI Military Spouse of the year, I would hope to accomplish bringing all the knowledge and wonderful outlets from the other spouse winners back to Davis Monthan AFB. This title brings a sense of honor that would empower me to continue to do my very best in helping the families of our amazing military members. I want to learn as much as I can and learn how to not only better myself but also share the wealth of knowledge given to me to other Key Spouses at my base through this amazing title. I hope to not only improve the skills and knowledge of myself through the amazing opportunities and connections this program offers but also having the amazing ability to get to know the other AFI Military Spouses and learning all of the amazing wealth of military life knowledge they have to offer.