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Sesame Workshop Founder Joan Ganz Cooney and her husband Peter Peterson

On Tuesday night the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) hosted their sixth annual Heroes Gala, and Sesame Workshop co-founder Joan Ganz Cooney and her husband, Chairman Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Peter G. Peterson, were honored at the event. Mrs. Ganz Cooney received the IAVA’s 2012 Civilian Service Award in recognition of all the work Sesame Workshop does to help military families, but in particular Sesame’s Talk, Listen, Connect outreach initiative, which focuses on providing military parents with the tools they need to discuss complex issues like deployment, relocation, injury and the loss of a parent with their children.

“Many parents don’t have the right words to help explain to their child what happens when they must go away, how to reassure their children when they return from service injured, or worst of all, when a parent dies,” Mrs. Ganz Cooney said while accepting the award. “But with the right language, support, and the help of the Muppets, we are able to help.  Since its launch, our Talk, Listen, Connect initiative has grown to reach virtually every U.S. military family with young children.”

Mrs. Ganz Cooney went on to thank the IAVA, saying, “It makes it all the more meaningful to receive this honor from an organization that is working every day to advocate for and support our veterans and their families.”

To learn more about the Talk, Listen, Connect initiative, click here. To get a firsthand look at the resources and tools we provide for military families, visit Military Families Near and Far.

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This year, Sesame Workshop did a little something extra to say thank you: Associate Design Director of Special Projects Louis Henry Mitchell created the above painting as a special way of saying thank you to all the men and women who either currently or once served in our nation’s military and their families. On Thursday Mitchell and other members of the Sesame Workshop team presented it to the United War Veterans Council, which puts on the Veterans Day Parade.

“To be able to represent Sesame Workshop with a piece of my artwork to thank our veterans was a gift for me in and of itself,” said Mitchell. “I told them that the gift was ultimately to Sesame Workshop for giving us the opportunity to thank our veterans. There is nothing we could do to ever thank them enough for what they have done and continue to do for each of us and our entire country.”

Executive Director of the United War Veterans Council Pat Gaultieri said that, when he received the artwork, “it was thrilling.” However Gaultieri said there was another group of people in the room for whom it was even more special.

“There was a gold star family (a family who has lost a loved one in battle) there,” said Gaultieri. “They know they’ll be able to the show it to their children. They know someone cares, someone really cares.”

If you make it down to the parade and want to see the Sesame Workshop’s board thanking our veterans, it will be located by the reviewing stage near the public library between 40^th and 41^st Streets on 5^th Avenue.

“It never grows old,” Marleene “Molly” Levi, Good Will Ambassador for the United War Veterans Council, said of the parade. “It always unfolds like magic. Watching 5th Avenue just come alive. It never grows old.”

If you want to learn more about the ways Sesame Workshop supports military families, click here.

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Lynn Chwatsky is Sesame Workshop’s Vice President of Outreach Initiatives and Partners. She has been overseeing the work the Workshop does with military families since 2006.

When we think about the challenges of military life, we sometimes forget the transitions the youngest members of our military families go through. Our service members’ young children are faced with a number of uniquely difficult circumstances: repeated relocation, the deployment of a parent, homecomings, injuries, even the death of a parent – to name a few.  For years, Sesame Workshop has been providing resources that help both military parents and their children stay resilient during those trying transitions, and now those bilingual (English and Spanish) resources are available on our new, free Military Families mobile application.

The Sesame Street for Military Families app includes videos, articles, storybooks and caregiver guides on how parents and children can communicate and express their emotions about challenging transitions.

Sesame Workshop has long been dedicated to the well-being of military families and their children. We reach out to families wherever they are: online, on mobile devices, even on the road. Our partnership with the USO, which brings The Sesame Street/USO Experience for Military Families to thousands of families around the world, has provided infinite smiles and messages of love and support.

As technology evolves, new ways to help children through challenging transitions have emerged. That’s why Sesame Workshop uses online resources like our FamiliesNearAndFar.org website, which provides digital tools for military children, and social media like our Sesame Street for Military Families Facebook page to create an online community for sharing these resources. Our Feel Electric! app for military kids proved that mobile apps could deliver much needed content to help children express themselves during tough transitions.  From those successes we knew we needed to provide the grown-ups in these same military families with resources on the device they rely on more and more – that is why we launched the Sesame Street for Military Families mobile app.

Learn more about the app and download it for FREE from the App Store^(SM) or Google Play.

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Lynn Chwatsky (right) stands next to Gen. Raymond T. Odierno during the ceremony.

As an entire organization, Sesame Workshop is dedicated to improving the lives of servicemen and women and their families, but a few people at Sesame deserve special recognition for the work they do on behalf of military families. Lynn Chwatsky, Vice President of Outreach Initiatives and Partners for Sesame Workshop, is one of those people. That’s why we’re proud to announce that last week Lynn was awarded the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, an award given to civilians who make a “substantial contribution” to the military.

General Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, presented the award to Lynn and an esteemed group of fellow recipients: New York Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin, Baltimore Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh, NBA referee Bob Delaney, and Linda Patterson, President and Founder of America Supporting Americans.

“I’m humbled,” Lynn said. “Every second of everyday our servicemen and women serve our country with dignity, honor and respect. For them to thank me – I was honored. It was very special. It was one of the top few days of my life.”

To learn more about the ways Lynn and the rest of the Sesame Workshop team support military families, click here.

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Helping children persevere through changes and transitions is a critical part of Sesame Street’s mission. That’s why Sesame Workshop, the educational non-profit behind the iconic children’s show, is proud to announce Little Children, Big Challenges, a new outreach initiative dedicated to building skills for resilience in children ages 2–5 to help them persevere through day-to-day as well as more difficult challenges.

Learning from mistakes; making new friends; resolving conflicts: these are the kinds of early childhood struggles with which Little Children, Big Challenges will help young kids cope. The initiative will help children from every background, including those of military and veteran families, remain resilient while working through these and other challenges.

The bilingual (English/Spanish) initiative will feature online, interactive resources for parents and children, as well as the “What We Are” anthem, which you can watch above. The anthem will be performed live by the Quantico Marine Corps band, Sesame Street’s Gordon, Elmo and Rosita, and Matt Rogers, the host of Lifetime’s Coming Home, at a special event aboard the Intrepid this Saturday, May 26.

Major support for Little Children Big Challenges is provided by BAE Systems, Inc. Generous support is provided by The Prudential Foundation, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the USO, and Military Child Education Coalition.

To learn more about how Sesame Workshop is helping children build resilience, visit Sesame Street’s military families website or the Little Children, Big Challenges page at SesameStreet.org, which will launch Friday.

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Click here to download the Military Families Highlights Video

For years Sesame Workshop has been working to better the lives of military families. We’re excited to present research and analysis which demonstrates just how effective our military families initiative has been. At a panel moderated by Bob and Lee Woodruff, both widely respected journalists and founders of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Sesame Workshop unveiled the findings of a report by the Military Families Research Institute, Russell Research and the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Uniformed Service University of the Health Science, on the ways in which Sesame Workshop’s outreach efforts have helped military families persevere through the challenging transitions that accompany military life.

The panel included an esteemed group of experts: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey; Charles E. Milam, Principal Director for Military Community and Family Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense; Patty Shinseki, Board Member of the Military Child Education Coalition and advisor for Joining Forces, a White House initiative that brings attention to the needs and sacrifices of veterans, service members, military families and their children; Dr. Stephen Cozza, Colonel USA (ret.), Associate Director, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Uniformed Services University of the Health Science; Dr. Jeanette Betancourt, Senior Vice President Outreach and Educational Practices at Sesame Workshop; Dr. Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, Professor and Director, Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University; and Major Nico Marcolongo, USMC (ret.), Program Manager, Challenged Athletes Foundation Operation Rebound.

The panel was on Wednesday, April 18. You can watch highlights from the event above.

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Lee Woodruff and her husband Bob, who was injured in Iraq by a roadside bomb in 2006.

Lee Woodruff is the co-founder of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, the mission of which is to provide resources and support to injured service members, veterans and their families. For years Lee, her husband Bob Woodruff and Sesame Workshop have worked together to help military families stay strong as they experience the many challenging transitions that accompany military service. On Wednesday, April 18, Lee and her husband will be moderating a Sesame Workshop panel on military families which will include such esteemed guests as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and Patty Shinseki, board member of the Military Child Education Coalition and advisor for Joining Forces, a White House initiative that brings attention to the needs and sacrifices of veterans, service members, military families and their children, and encourages action to provide broad-based American support to them.

To learn more about the work Sesame Workshop does with military families, visit Sesame Workshop’s Military Families page. To watch the Sesame Workshop panel on military families live on April 18, click here.

Sesame Workshop: Tell me about the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the particular way it goes about bettering the lives of service-members and their families.

Lee Woodruff: We are really a grant-giving organization. We are the United Way of military causes. We raise money and turn around and look at small, grassroots organizations around the country. This year our grants are really focused on getting people back to work. Service-members need retraining, because most of these guys cannot be re-deployed. And we also give generous grants for mental health initiatives.

As these wars drag on, the needs of veterans and service members change. Five years ago our grants were mostly for rehabilitation. People were trying to get proper rehab. But the military has stepped up its game. We get to shift the lens of our resources depending on the needs each year. For us, if that’s an area that’s been taken care of this year, we can shift that bag of giving where the need is most dire. In this economy, the need is getting these people back to work.

SW: In 2006 your husband Bob Woodruff was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Is that where your concern for the wellbeing of military families derives from?

Lee: Yes, absolutely. We were so fortunate in that, when this happened to us, we had such a strong support network. We had child care. Our kids were flying back forth [to Germany, where Bob Woodruff was hospitalized]. I didn’t worry about whether my job would be waiting. While in the military hospitals, we began to be cognizant of the families around us.

There’s so much of [Bob’s] recovery and healing that fed off having his children around when getting out of the hospital. It was so important the he knew they were taken care of and loved, and that their basic needs were met. That’s why we’re so laudatory of Sesame Workshop for taking the angle that helping kids heal is so critical to the entire family. We understand as a family how important children are to the equation.

SW: Tell me more about the challenges troops and their families are facing both while the parents are at war and when they return home.

Lee: Because we don’t have mandatory service these families are being deployed over and over again. Every time you’re there you’re open to post-traumatic stress disorder, multiple concussive effects and the trauma of the acts of war. Reservists who never expected to see active duty are undergoing extreme situations they never thought they would. Families are being ripped apart and are not prepared to welcome back home that same person.

I’ve heard people say, “My body came home. I was lying in my bed there next to my wife, but I never came home.” Dad or mom is present but everything has been tinkered with. I don’t think Americans are prepared to understand what these people have been through.

SW: What are the ways the average person can help members of the military and their families?

Lee: The troops are a proud population. They are the last people who are going to raise their hands and ask for help. But we really need to come together as a community around these families. It’s not going to happen from the top down. There are a number of deserving organizations that could use a check. If every American gave $5, we could solve so many issues for these families. You could also make a difference by volunteering. Go to a bedside of a service-member’s child and read. It’s so easy with the internet to figure out how to plug yourself in.

SW: Tell me more about the Sesame Workshop panel on military families you and your husband on moderating on Wednesday, April 18 in Washington, D.C.

Lee: It’s a pretty illustrious panel, so Bob and I feel proud to be a part of it. Sesame Workshop has such a collaborative spirit. That’s what I think is so nice about the panel. And it’s keeping attention on the issue. Most Americans are just going on their merry way, getting their oil changed. They’re forgetting about the less than one percent of the population who is serving in ways most people can’t imagine.

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To learn more about the work Sesame Workshop does with military families, click here.

Sesame Workshop: You recently came back from a USO tour. Tell me a bit about the work you’ve done with the USO in the past.

Carmen Osbahr: That was our second tour. The first one was in 2010. At the end of the year we went to Germany, where the USO took us to two military bases. It worked out so well that this time they took us to Guam and Hawaii. It was really cool.

SW: What age groups are you performing for? What are the performances like?

Carmen: The military bases have amazing schools. We go to the elementary schools and visit kids from preschool to second grade. We do a show that is very casual and personal. It’s Kevin [Clash] and me with the puppets on our hands. We sing songs and talk to the kids and bring them to the front. We tickle them and hug them and make them sing a song with us. We do four shows a day with 100 kids or a bit more at each show.

The kids see us working with the puppets on our hands. At the beginning they’re confused. Then after a few seconds they forget about us completely and they start interacting with the characters, which for me is the coolest thing. You disappear. It’s especially true for Elmo. It’s such a wonderful feeling. They talk to our characters like they know them. We go there and give a lot of love, but I love it because it’s like therapy for me. They love us.

SW: Tell me a bit more about the work Sesame Workshop does with military families.

Carmen: Sesame Workshop has been working with military families for six years now. We do a lot of outreach projects. When the war started, everyone was talking about the troops. But the troops have families. They have little kids. Nobody was talking about the families.

We did outreach kits on dealing with deployment, on coping with the changes, both physical and mental, and on grieving. When we started, the military was so thankful. They wanted more. We weren’t just helping the kids, we were helping the young parents too. It was helping in both ways.

SW: How is the Sesame Street/USO show different from other on-base entertainment?

Carmen: They always bring the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, comedians, or other celebrities. We were the first show to come in that was for the families. Kevin Clash [who performs as Elmo] and I were completely willing to go meet the kids and make it more personal.  They’ve been putting us in direct contact with military families. I have a personal relationship with the military. I feel like it is my mission to be there.

SW: Although you feel strongly about military families, you’re not originally from this country. Tell us how you first moved to the United States and why you chose to become an American citizen.

Carmen: I was hired by Jim Henson in 1989, and I was brought to this country with a work visa. I’ve been very lucky because I’ve been living in this wonderful country, but I never thought about changing my nationality. I’m a Mexican and I’m very proud of it. After 9/11, it got very personal. I started getting to know military families. I don’t think civilians can completely realize what they have to deal with. Not just the troops and servicemen and women but their families, their wives, their kids, their whole communities. “Service” is not just a word. They really serve this country in ways I didn’t realize. Growing up in Mexico, I never encountered anything like that.

For the first time I realized how amazing the families are and I said, “You want to know what, I’m going to become an American citizen.” They ask you, “Will you give your life for this country?” I was never able to answer that one, but after meeting the military families I was able to say yes. If my son in the future wants to be part of the military, I would be more than honored. And I will be ready too. I will be there for him. I see what the families do.

In a way I wish my son would have that kind of experience, the kind of experience those people have. When they [the service members] go away, they have to relate to the person next to them. Every time I go away with Kevin on these trips, I learn so much from the servicemembers. I admire them more and more.

SW: How does your work with military families affect your understanding of Sesame Workshop’s mission?

Carmen: It’s not just my work. I think that the mission of Sesame Workshop, especially our work with the military families, is an incredible mission. Everybody should be proud of what the Workshop and its people are doing. We’re just the performers. We’re the lucky ones. But the day-to-day workers at the Workshop are the ones doing this. It’s teamwork and I love it. I love that Sesame Workshop has this kind of mission. It’s not just the Sesame Street show. Sesame has these outreach projects and it’s wonderful to be part of them.

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