{"id":199684,"date":"2026-03-20T21:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199684\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:19:07","slug":"dvids-news-lending-a-hand-fort-lauderdales-sailors-and-marines-clean-up-st-thomas-human-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199684\/","title":{"rendered":"DVIDS &#8211; News &#8211; Lending a Hand: Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Sailors and Marines Clean up St. Thomas Human Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands \u2013 U.S. Sailors and Marines, assigned to the Iwo Jima Amphibious Readiness Group (IWO ARG) \u2013 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Special Operations Capable (SOC), volunteered their time at The Humane Society of St. Thomas during a community service event Feb. 15, 2026.<br \/>\nSailors and Marines from San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD 28) spent their Sunday morning rearranging shelves, removing debris, and reorganizing to allow for more one-site supply storage at the facility.<br \/>\n\u201cOne of the reasons that people join the military is a strong desire to give back to our communities and to serve our neighbors. Community relation [COMREL] activities allow Sailors and Marines to do just that,\u201d said Lt. Cmdr. David Sensenig, Fort Lauderdale\u2019s chaplain.<br \/>\nA hallmark event to most deployments, COMRELs afford service members the opportunity to spend time with each other outside of the operational environment to give back to the local community through acts of service.<br \/>\n\u201cI was very excited to hear that we were doing another volunteer event,\u201d said a participating Sailor. \u201c[I think] it\u2019s good to get a break from the day-in-day-out and be able to spend time with people outside of work.\u201d<br \/>\nThe Humane Society of St. Thomas is the only animal shelter available on the island. The facility, founded in 1957 as a shelter for neglected animals, is a non-profit organization that relies heavily on the generosity of volunteers.<br \/>\nPatrick Alessandri, the humane society\u2019s maintenance coordinator, has collaborated with the U.S. Navy for four years on service projects and spoke of the benefits the facility and community gained from the help of Sailors and Marines.<br \/>\n\u201cWith other volunteers you\u2019re not really certain what they can or can\u2019t do. In the military, there is nothing you can\u2019t do,\u201d Alessandri said.<br \/>\nSensenig highlighted how community service serves a dual purpose, allowing service members to provide assistance to those in need while shaping partnerships on a local scale that have broader impacts internationally.<br \/>\n\u201cWhile COMRELs probably won\u2019t make the news like some of our high-profile operations do, they demonstrate the same qualities of dedication and commitment for which the Navy and Marine Corps are so well known,\u201d Sensenig explained.<br \/>\nFort Lauderdale is deployed to the Caribbean in support of the U.S. Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president\u2019s priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland.<br \/>\nFor more information about Fort Lauderdale visit: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FORTLAUDERDALELPD28\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands \u2013 U.S. Sailors and Marines, assigned to the Iwo Jima Amphibious Readiness Group&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-199684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}