March 21, 2016
San Antonio, TX — Operation Homefront and Booz Allen Hamilton today announced that Elizabeth O’Brien, age 17, of Aberdeen, North Carolina is the inaugural recipient of their Innovation Award for Military Children.
“We are pleased to name Elizabeth O’Brien as the winner of this first-ever Innovation Award for Military Children,” said Laurie Gallo, executive vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton and member of Operation Homefront’s board of directors. “We’re proud to recognize the accomplishments of our military families. Elizabeth embodies the ideals we hope to see in all of our children—empathy, compassion, an ability to recognize and analyze a problem and not only propose a solution but implement it. She is to be commended for this, and we know that she will go far in life because she’s not waiting to have an impact—she’s doing it now.”
The Operation Homefront-Booz Allen Hamilton Innovation Award for Military Children goes to a military child who has designed a bold, creative solution to address a local, regional or global challenge. With a new invention, improvement to existing technology, creation of a new nonprofit or community service group or expansion of an existing membership organization, the winner shows the power of innovative thinking.
Elizabeth’s innovation is the Military Child Access Assistance Program. In partnership with the nonprofit Military Missions in Action (MMIA), this program provides accessibility ramps and other home modifications to children's homes, which are not covered by Tricare. In addition, Elizabeth developed the Hike2Help 5K, which has raised over $7,000 and funded three accessibility ramps, in addition to other accessibility modifications.
Also, Elizabeth’s family has experienced five Permanent Changes of Station and a total of 34 months of deployment. Through all this, she has logged 1,500 volunteer hours with MMIA since age 12.
Booz Allen Hamilton will host Elizabeth at their Innovation Center in Washington, D.C. on April 13. Additionally, Booz Allen Hamilton employees will assist the winner to scale or advance his or her project. She will receive a $5,000 grant and be recognized at the Operation Homefront Military Child of the Year® Awards Gala on April 14.
