PARKVILLE, MO (KCTV) -
Second lady Jill Biden was in Kansas City on Monday, and she visited with members of the Missouri National Guard at Park University.
Biden said it was a Missouri program that caught her eye, and she wanted to know more about it.
When Jenn Whitacre's husband, Spc. Shane Whitacre, a member of the Military Police Company, returned from Iraq, things didn't just fall back into place. Whitacre suffered a shoulder injury and needed an operation and months of therapy.
"It was keeping us from functioning as a family," Whitacre's wife, Jenn Whitacre, said.
Jenn Whitacre's job with the Missouri National Guard was to assist military families. Yet, she couldn't help herself. Finding transportation to daycare for their youngest proved to be difficult. That is when her chaplain told her about Partners In Care.
"When they were able to find a volunteer who would come by every day Monday through Friday and pick my daughter and my husband up and drive them to daycare it allowed us to continue to function," she said.
Partners in Care finds faith-based organizations that are in the same area as military families and connects them with support services they need, whether it is counseling, transportation or household needs.
The program caught the attention of Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden. She spoke with military families at Park University in a roundtable discussion.
"You all know what it feels like to have someone deployed. You try to pretend things are normal, but they are not," Biden said.
Partners in Care wants to encourage churches and faith-based organizations to get involved and urges military families to utilize the program.
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