An initiative to recognize the resiliency of military children is making its debut at the Trenton Military Family Resource Centre.

The TMFRC is holding its inaugural Teal Up for Military Kids Day at all three branches on Thursday, with all staff members wearing teal shirts to mark the occasion.

Event organizer Kendra Bickford explains this initiative was a spin-off of sorts from a US military initiative called "Purple Up."

“In Shiloh, Manitoba at the MFRC there, they changed it a little to be Teal Up for Military Kids in Canada,” she explained.

“They chose teal because it includes all branches of the Canadian military, blue for Air Force, green for Army, and blue and white for Navy.”

Like wearing pink for Anti-Bullying Day, wearing teal is a visual representation to recognize all military children’s strength and spirit while facing unique circumstances.

The initiative is meant to acknowledge the difficulty of children growing up in military families and dealing with frequent moves, starting over at new schools, and spending time away from parents or loved ones.

What makes it unique for the kids and families posted to the Trenton base, Bickford explained, is the back-and-forth yo-yo of people being deployed for short, but frequent periods of time, along with the longer-term deployments.

"We also have families where a member will be posted to another base, but the family will stay local, so sometimes they're living apart," she noted.

"We recognize that there are challenges that come with that and we're here to support them. We're so proud of the kids, because there's lots of change that comes with that and a lot of emotional roller-coasters. We just want them to know that they're recognized."

This event is part of several that have been held in April, the Month of the Military Child.

One of them is the military family art exhibit here at the Trenton MFRC, Bickford said.

"Earlier in the month, we had local military families come out to paint a canvas, illustrating what it means to them to be part of the military community," she said.

"Some of them have some write-ups of what their pictures mean, and they got some family photos as well that evening."

"We've also gone out to one of the schools and had a little positive post-it note activity with the kids to celebrate spreading positivity to the military community and to the rest of the community as well, whoever drops in."

Bickford added TMFRC staff members across Trenton, Belleville and Batawa branches have been providing teal ribbons to different schools and people in the community to tie around fences outside as a visual representation of strong military kids at their locations.

She said they plan to run the initiative as an annual event and they hope to expand it more into the civilian community and schools in 2023.

"We really see a lot of participation and excitement about it this year. We expect that to grow as we plan for the future."

More information on the Trenton MFRC is available at its website.