{"id":382741,"date":"2026-08-27T17:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/382741\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:06:09","slug":"jacksonville-celebrates-great-american-defense-communities-designation-association-of-defense-communities-adc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/382741\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville Celebrates Great American Defense Communities Designation \u2013 Association of Defense Communities (ADC)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A delegation from the Association of Defense Communities recently\u00a0visited Jacksonville, Florida, one of three\u00a0designees\u00a0in the 2026 class of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/defensecommunities.org\/gadc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Great American Defense Communities<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u00a0can tell this is a great city,\u201d ADC Board Member Keith Graf said at a reception\u00a0attended by local officials, business leaders, military\u00a0commanders\u00a0and community members. \u201cSeeing everything you do to support the installations\u00a0is just amazing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The delegation\u00a0received mission briefs and tours at\u00a0Naval Air Station Jacksonville,\u00a0Naval Station Mayport\u00a0and\u00a0Marine Corps Support\u00a0Facility Blount Island.\u00a0They also received an update on community\u00a0support programs from Harrison Conyers, director of the city\u2019s Military\u00a0Affairs and Veterans Department.\u00a0Jacksonville is one of only two\u00a0cities in the country with a cabinet-level official overseeing military\u00a0affairs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>ADC Executive Director Matt Borron presented an official Great American Defense Communities flag to Mayor Donna Deegan\u00a0before the community\u2019s annual\u00a0Purple Heart Recognition Ceremony.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0delegation also included two representatives from\u00a0Sourcewell, ADC\u2019s official partner for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/defensecommunities.org\/gadc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Great American Defense Communities<\/a>\u00a0program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The other two communities\u00a0recognized\u00a0this year are the\u00a0Greater\u00a0Augusta\u00a0Region in Georgia\u00a0and\u00a0Shreveport-Bossier in\u00a0Louisiana.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>ADC photo by Andy Varnes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A delegation from the Association of Defense Communities recently\u00a0visited Jacksonville, Florida, one of three\u00a0designees\u00a0in the 2026 class of\u00a0Great&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-382741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382741","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=382741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}