New USO office helps Pittsburgh area soldiers and families during pandemic

United Service Organizations, better known simply as USO, has been improving the lives of military members and their families since World War II, but the organization went decades without a presence in Western Pennsylvania

“It was just an unserved area, nobody really had ownership of it,” said Christine Ree, USO operations manager in Western Pennsylvania. “There was a desire to put a USO in Pittsburgh. From my research, it’s been since 1947 that we had any USO presence in Pittsburgh.”

That changed this year, when the USO of Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey opened an office at the Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station in Moon, Allegheny County.

The nonprofit organization is perhaps best known for its “camp shows” in World War II, when celebrities like comedian Bob Hope would fly overseas to entertain the troops.

Entertainment is still part of the USO mission, but the organization has taken on many other initiatives, Ree said.

The Western Pennsylvania office this year delivered Thanksgiving meals to military families in need. Volunteers distributed donated drinks, snacks and hygiene items to service members, and school supplies to military kids. The office also hosted several events, like a Halloween trunk-or-treat and celebrations of Mothers Day and Fathers Day for military spouses.

The USO’s Bob Hope Legacy Reading Program records service members who are about to be deployed reading a storybook, then sends the recording and the book to their families.

“Can you imagine being a child and getting a package from your mom or dad?” Ree asked. “It helps keep the families connected.”

Unlike some organizations which focus on veterans, the USO is focused on active-duty service members, including National Guard members and reservists.

Starting the Western Pennsylvania office was a project years in the making. Volunteer Linda Horner first heard it proposed at a Daughters of the American Revolution convention.

A few years later, the call for volunteers went out, and Horner was one of the first to sign up. She started working on local USO programs before the office opened, filling backpacks for kids in August 2019.

A military spouse herself, Horner said she was glad to give other families the support she never had.

“Forty years ago when my husband was stationed in Hawaii, there was nothing like that for myself or for my daughter,” she said. “It brought tears to my eyes, because I wish someone had been there for my kid, doing that.”

Getting the office up and running was more challenging than expected thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

“All of a sudden, wham, three months into it covid hits,” Ree said. “So how do you adjust?”

The pandemic limited the USO’s ability to hold in-person events. Ree, the sole paid staff member for the office, had hoped to network with local organizations to find volunteers and donors.

“We rely on our partners to help us,” Ree said. “You can’t make those kind of relationships on a webinar.”

Sgt. Summer Bennett, a full-time soldier at the Tech Sergeant McGarity Reserve Center in Moon, said the new USO office has made life a little easier for reservists during the pandemic.

“For the reservists and their families, it was a little light at the end of the tunnel during covid,” she said.

A soldier for 14 years, Bennett has been stationed all over the country. She said she’s never seen outreach efforts like those of the local USO.

“It’s just a good organization to know that they’re there in case we ever need help for our soldiers,” she said. “I’ve never really had an organization reach out and ask ‘what do our soldiers need?’”

In the years ahead, Ree hopes to expand the organization’s outreach. Most of its events this year were held in Allegheny County — with a few in Butler and Altoona, Blair County — but Ree would like to be active throughout the region. Her biggest priority is making people aware and getting them involved, she said.

Those interested in learning more can visit liberty.uso.org.

“I want the USO to be a household name around here in Western Pennsylvania,” Ree said. “I always knew what the USO was, and there are so many people who don’t now.”