Chamber recognition highlights Blue Star Families’ work connecting military families with one another and the greater Fayetteville community.
Living the life of a military family is something only those who have lived it can fully understand. Relocations and deployments can leave families rebuilding community in places where they know no one beyond the military families around them.
Blue Star Families builds on a truth military families often learn quickly: family can also be found in the people who help carry you through unfamiliar seasons. The organization recognizes that those further along the military-family journey are often best equipped to help those coming behind them.
“The mission, while simple and powerful, is to connect military family members to one another, the resources and the community,” said Danice Langdon, director of Blue Star Families’ Greater Fayetteville Region.
Recently named the Greater Fayetteville Chamber’s 2026 Nonprofit of the Year, Blue Star Families of the Greater Fayetteville Region has spent the past year creating spaces where military-connected families can find support, resources and one another.
Langdon said the recognition reflects the dedication of the families the organization serves, along with the community partners and sponsors who help make its work possible. She also sees it as evidence that Fayetteville recognizes the value military families bring to the region.
That work begins by listening.
Blue Star Families does not decide what military families need and then build programs around assumptions. Instead, the organization gathers direct feedback through conversations with members and tools such as the Military Family Lifestyle Survey.
The survey allows military-connected people to identify their needs directly, helping guide programs, policy discussions, partnerships and support.
According to Langdon, 66% of military families in the area live off post, while one in four experiences food insecurity. Those numbers help Blue Star Families understand not only where families live, but what challenges may follow them home.
The data is a starting point, but the families themselves help determine what happens next.
If members want more outdoor opportunities or programs supporting children, careers or connection, Langdon and her team look for ways to make those ideas possible.
“This is your chapter,” Langdon tells members. “My job is to facilitate what it is you need and want to thrive here locally.”
Coffee Connects, Little Builders and programs such as book clubs grew from member feedback, and members are encouraged to help lead the programs they requested.
Outdoor programming has also drawn strong participation. A strawberry-picking event welcomed 91 family members, while activities at Clark Park have included birdhouse building, nature education and hiking.
The activities create room for families to meet, exchange information and build relationships naturally. Langdon said those conversations may lead a newly arrived family to a trusted doctor, someone who understands how to cut the hair of a child with Exceptional Family Member Program needs or another military family familiar with the challenges they are facing.
Those ordinary exchanges can help families begin to feel rooted in a place that is still new to them.
While Blue Star Families is often mistaken for a military-spouse organization, Langdon emphasized that its reach is much broader. It welcomes active-duty service members, military spouses and families, veterans, retirees, military-connected children and community supporters. Children remain military-connected even after their parents' divorce and can still benefit from Blue Star Families’ support and opportunities.
Businesses, organizations and individuals also help create the connections Blue Star Families is working to build by introducing military-connected families to the broader community around them.
For Langdon, the first qualification for a potential community partner comes down to one question: “Do you support our military?”
That support is also reflected in how the chapter earned its recent recognition. Because nominations for the Greater Fayetteville Chamber’s annual awards come from within its membership, Blue Star Families’ selection showed that local business and community leaders were paying attention to the work being done.
“I think that we do good work,” Langdon said. “And I think the community can see that.”
Being named the Chamber’s 2026 Nonprofit of the Year reinforced the organization’s mission to connect military families not only to one another but also to the resources and support available throughout the community.
The chapter’s upcoming programming continues that work.
Participation in the current Military Family Lifestyle Survey will help Blue Star Families understand what families in the region need and shape future support around their responses.
Welcome Week, planned for late September through early October, will be the chapter’s largest upcoming effort. Nine events are planned, including Coffee Connects, wellness programming, employment support, fishing, a zoo trip and a small-business social.
The week will welcome families following summer transitions and the beginning of the school year, with programs covering careers, entrepreneurship, recreation, wellness and community.
Star, Stripes and Holiday Wishes is scheduled for Dec. 5. The event will bring families and community supporters together for dinner, gifts and holiday activities. The chapter is seeking partners to help provide gifts for 100 children.
For Langdon, the next goal is not simply adding another award to the chapter’s list. It is building greater participation, a stronger volunteer base and more members willing to step forward and lead.
Each new connection gives someone further along in the military journey an opportunity to reach back and remind another family, “You’re going to be okay.”
When Blue Star Families gets it right, Langdon said, members “leave feeling connected, and they want to be involved again.”
For more information, or to join Blue Families, visit https://bluestarfam.org/chapters/fayetteville/

(Graphic courtesy of Blue Star Families of the Greater Fayetteville Region)