Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group Sailors Improve Community Relations Abroad
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS080702-03
Release Date: 7/2/2008 4:13:00 PM
By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Coleman Thompson, Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group Public Affairs
USS NASSAU At Sea (NNS) -- During its recent deployment to the Navy's 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operation, 522 Navy and Marine Corps volunteers from the Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group completed 28 community relations (COMREL) projects, totaling 2,605 man-hours of work.
"Community relations projects are important for a variety of reasons," explained Lt. Cmdr. Michael W. Gore, USS Nassau (LHA 4) chaplain. "For some, they are an expression of their religious faith, for others they are a demonstration of their humanitarian concern. For each, they afford an opportunity to interact with other cultures, thus fostering intercultural understanding and demonstrating the best that our American culture has to offer."
Nassau provided 1,240 man-hours from 253 volunteers to 13 different COMREL projects in Malta, Italy, Greece, Bahrain and Dubai.
USS Ashland (LSD 48) contributed 510 man-hours from 100 volunteers to projects in Greece, Israel, Mauritius and Madagascar.
Sailors from USS Nashville (LPD 13) -- 75 in all -- provided 300 man-hours worth of work in six different COMREL projects in Spain and Greece.
USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) participated in COMREL projects in Greece, Israel and Turkey, with 65 volunteers who contributed a total of 400 man-hours.
More than two dozen Sailors from USS Bulkeley (DDG 84) volunteered 125 man-hours to a project in Seychelles, and Ross contributed 30 man-hours from five volunteers to a project in France.
Gore explained the work was roughly the equivalent to hiring a team of eight people to work two months at a labor cost of $50,000.
For more news from Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group, visit www.navy.mil/local/esg8/.
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