Miltary Teen Helps Military Teens

Candace von Hoffman '14 knows what it’s like to be a military kid. The daughter of an Air Force Reserve colonel and Alabama Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, she has seen her parents leave for deployment for months at a time since she was an infant, and she understands the joys and challenges of military family life.

At age 16, von Hoffman is taking her experience and using it to help others living a similar path. She has been selected to serve on the Air Force Reserve Command Teen Leadership Council, a national council formed to give Air Force Reserve senior leaders an insight into the concerns of Air Force Reserve youth and families, particularly those whose parents have been deployed multiple times.

Von Hoffman is one out of only 20 Air Force teens nationwide selected to participate on the Council. She began her one-year term this month.

As a member of the Council, von Hoffman will:

With multiple deployments and frequent family moves, the children of military families need each other, von Hoffman says. That’s where the Council comes in, offering services to help Air Force children realize that “we can find a piece of home wherever we are because we have each other,” she adds.

Von Hoffman is especially pleased to be a part of a program that positively impacts military families. “I’m in love with the idea of giving back to people who give to us, who work so hard to protect our country and who I respect so much,” she says. “I am honored to do what I can for them and their families.”

Von Hoffman is the daughter of Col Cauley von Hoffman '85, commander of the 908th Maintenance Group, 908th Airlift Wing, at Maxwell Air Force Base (and herself a graduate of Indian Springs School) and Lt Col Mitch von Hoffman, Director of Operations for the 100th Fighter Squadron at the Montgomery Air National Guard Base.