Helping Military Kids Shine Through Innovation

Booz Allen demonstrates its thought leadership and passionate service by promoting sustainable military service through the physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of service members, veterans, and military families. We wanted to share our own innovation roadmap with the next generation.

Together with longtime not-for-profit partner Operation Homefront, we created the Booz Allen Hamilton Innovation Award for Military Children, to be given to a military child who has created an innovative community program or nonprofit. Our award is part of the larger Military Child of the Year (MCOY) Awards, an Operation Homefront program recognizing outstanding military children of all branches, as well as wounded warriors "demonstrating resiliency, leadership, and achievement."

Most military children move eight times before they graduate high school. That means they rarely get opportunities to be recognized for their achievements or build a community of supporters for scholarships and other college-readiness opportunities.

"Booz Allen is committed to shining a spotlight on the creativity, commitment, and compassion of military families, and we thought a great way to do that is recognize the contributions they are making in their communities," Laurie adds.

Booz Allen’s Innovation Award is now a permanent part of the MCOY program. Nominees' projects are judged on impact, scalability and of course, innovation.

“Winning the Booz Allen Innovation Award was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” says Elizabeth, now an 18-year-old college student. “It’s nice to be recognized, but more importantly, because of this award, more children with disabilities will receive help and attention to their needs.”

As an Innovation Award winner, Elizabeth received a cash award, a trip to Booz Allen’s Innovation Center in DC, and the support of a volunteer project team that helped her map out what’s next for her program. The result is a unique, cross-sector effort to provide disabled military children with their own leadership, service, and social opportunities in the community.

Lisa led the team that helped Elizabeth: “We were proud to grow Elizabeth's mission to create safe, accessible, social-inclusion activities for children requiring special accommodations."

Seventeen-year-old Sophie Bernstein is the newest Innovation Award winner for her sustainable food program. Elizabeth hopes the Sophie has just as amazing an experience as she has had working with Booz Allen’s people. 

“I feel the love and support from everyone that has worked on the Innovation Award program and my project team,” Elizabeth says. “They still check in on me, not only to talk about my program, but just to see how I’m doing in college. I love that.”