2025 Military Child of the Year Awards
Operation Homefront Honors Strength, Resilience of Military Children
By Jenny Valderas
Senior Director, Family Support Services, Operation Homefront
Children growing up in military families don’t make the decision to serve, yet each day, more than 1.6 million shoulder unique responsibilities that accompany military service. At Operation Homefront – a national nonprofit dedicated to helping military families stay strong, stable, and secure – we recognize the service of families through all our programs. One of those programs, the annual Operation Homefront Military Child of the Year® Award, honors seven extraordinary teens each year.
In their 17th year, the awards recognize one child from the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, National Guard, Navy, and Space Force for their exceptional leadership, volunteerism, scholarship, and extracurricular involvement.
This year’s class includes:
- Air Force: Sophia Pinero, Germany
- Army: Maribel Sikes, Kentucky
- Coast Guard: Ian Lindo, Virginia
- Marine Corps: Isabella Smith, North Carolina
- National Guard: Emily Baldeosingh, North Carolina
- Navy: Mason Mosher, Washington
- Space Force: Natalia Serna, California
“Our seven awardees are incredible young leaders with uniquely compelling stories that highlight the resiliency, strength, and service representative of the millions of military kids globally that serve every American alongside their parents,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Alan Reyes, CEO of Operation Homefront.
This year’s winners have lived through 283 months of having one or both parents deployed, and, combined, they have experienced 34 changes of station. Yet, their lives speak to service, leadership, and academic accomplishment.
Collectively, they logged 3,488 volunteer hours in the 12 months leading up to their nominations. They maintain high academic standards in honors, AP, and dual-credit classes while excelling in sports, mentoring peers, and supporting their communities.
Isabella, a high school junior and the daughter of two Marine Corps veterans, supports fellow military kids as a leader in her school’s Student 2 Student program. Her leadership earned her a spot among 11 high schoolers chosen to attend the 2024 Frances Hesselbein Student Leadership Program at West Point Academy. While there, she was honored with the Suzy Carlton Student Leadership and Civic Responsibility Award.
She also volunteered as a voter registrar and sought special permission to serve as an election official in the 2024 general election, despite being too young to vote. She was the youngest election official by at least 20 years.
“Because of the many years of service and hardships that my parents faced, I feel like I have a responsibility to serve my country and to leave it better than where it was when I got here,” Isabella said.
A shining example of resilience, Isabella emerged as a leader while grieving the death of her father. He was a Purple Heart recipient who retired after 22 years of service that included eight deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2023, at the beginning of Isabella’s sophomore year of high school, he died after being diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic cancer.
“My father was the epitome of hard work and dedication to his career,” she said. “I strive daily to be as committed as he was in everything I aspire to accomplish.”
Each class of recipients brings unique stories with the common thread of strength, service, and resilience in the face of the most extreme hardships.
Though military children grow up serving alongside their parents, the Military Child of the Year Award recipients bring their mission of service full circle. Some continue their family’s military tradition. Many choose to serve in fields such as education and medicine, and others create organizations to help military kids.
In April, the Month of the Military Child, the award recipients and their families spend a week in Washington, D.C., to celebrate their accomplishments. During that week, they connect quickly and build lasting friendships. Past recipients have gone on to become college roommates, and some of the families have vacationed together.
Being part of a military family equips kids to network, adapt to new situations, and appreciate new experiences and different cultures. A civilian child might get overwhelmed in the same circumstances, but military children look for the opportunities in their ever-changing lives. Even if they live somewhere for only a few years, they look for ways to plant a seed that will continue to grow after they’ve left.
“We are tremendously proud to honor the impact they have had, and will continue to have, on their families, respective communities, and our nation,” said Reyes, who is himself a military child and, after 32 years of service, is the proud parent of two adult children who are military spouses.
Thanks to the generosity of Operation Homefront’s donors, each Military Child of the Year honoree also will receive $10,000, a laptop computer, and other donated gifts.