San Diego's high cost of living can be challenging for young service members and their families and local nonprofits are trying to help.
Support the Enlisted Project, or STEP, began helping service members in 2012, providing financial education and assistance for enlisted people in need.
Tony Teravainen is STEP's co-founder and CEO. He said the organization remains committed to that educational mission.
"We do that through counseling, education and financial support," Teravainen said. "We think this is important because financial wellness is really the leading catalyst for food insecurity, homelessness (and) about 25 mental and physical health conditions — including the leading catalyst for suicide."
In 2020 STEP began distributing food to military families. Teravainen said they realized there was an unmet need for the service after the pandemic when they tried to phase it out.
"It's kind of like anything you get into — the more you do it, the more you see the need for it, the more you understand how much of a challenge out there and how deep these problems and challenges go," Teravainen said.
The airport San Diego USO Center caters to all sorts of service members and military retirees. There are days that hundreds of freshly-minted Marines straight out of boot camp pass through, either on their way home or to commands at Camp Pendleton or Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
The center provides snacks, drinks, showers and a place to wait for flights. Ramiro Favela manages the center. He said a small staff and a roster of about 200 volunteers makes it work.
"These are people that are choosing to be here, choosing to give back — choosing to support the military," Favela said. "You cannot put a price on that."
The USO also runs a center at Camp Pendleton where service members and their families can connect with services or with one another, Favela said.
Favela said they're busy during the holidays.
"There's definitely a huge increase in foot traffic at the (airport) center," Favela said. "That comes with increased demands."
For Thanksgiving the USO will serve meals to about 600 service members across eight San Diego commands, Favela said.
"We had a lot of generous donors helping us out with this," he said.
STEP distributed about 450 Thanksgiving meal kits this year, Teravainen said. He said demand for services has been steady over the years but has recently ticked up.
"I think more families are feeling more financial pressure," he said. "There was a big ... inflationary jump these last two years and everybody kind of felt the sting."
STEP is currently looking for donors to "adopt" a local military family for the holidays. The "Sharing the Joy" initiative aims to pair 300 families with donors who can fulfill items on an Amazon wish list. The organization also accepts donations of food and toys, and Teravainen said he expects to distribute them to about 250 families this year.
More information is available on each organization's websites: uso.org and teamstepUSA.org.
