Dorm management renovates day rooms, fosters wingmanship

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Erick Requadt
  • 23d Wing Public Affairs

The 23d Civil Engineer Squadron dorm management office is making new day room renovations and theming them with a variety of different concepts. From a movie theater with projectors to a full arcade, the dorm management office is dedicated to fostering networking and wingmanship for the 662 Airmen at the dorms.

The $60,000, 100 man-hour initiative stemmed from dorm management wanting to give Airmen who live in the dorms an opportunity to get out and meet other Airmen.

“We themed [the day rooms] so that people can get out and communicate, because the Air Force is big on networking and talking with people,” said Staff Sgt. Mario Ortiz, 23d CES dorm leader. “We really wanted to get that happening with Airmen. No one’s going to have ski ball or a football machine in their room.

“So that was the idea of how to get them out, that it’s really just give them something completely different, something they couldn’t have in their room.”

Airman 1st Class Breland Hoye, 23d CES engineer technician, expressed how getting Airmen out of their rooms and into the new day rooms could foster wingmanship among the Airmen.

“There’s games in here that you have to play as a team, so you can learn to work together,” said Hoye. “We get tired of sitting in our dorms by ourselves every day, so this’ll help us become better wingmen.”

Relating to when he was a new Airman and how hard it was to make connections with other people when the opportunities weren’t there, Ortiz realized how one of the biggest stressors dorm management noticed with Airmen who lived in the dorms was that of loneliness.

 “Since all you’re doing when you get out of work is just trying to relax, you just tend to stay in your room, because if there’s nothing really in the day room that gets you to get out there and hang out in those areas, you might as well just hang out in your room,” said Ortiz.

According to Ortiz, the day room renovations started off with a new idea in June as a simple request from the housing office to buy more items for the day rooms, but has since evolved into something far grander in scope and magnitude.

“We’ve never heard of anyone theming the day rooms in such a way,” said Ortiz. “You have to think outside the box. You have to think in terms of providing [Airmen] with something they don’t have.”

Ortiz explained that while the initiative is still a work in progress, they are continually adding new themes to the day rooms across the base dorms, with hopes that it will help pave a new way for Airmen to come together and be better wingmen.

“These improvements give us a chance to meet Airmen with similar [interests],” said Airman Rebecca Von Klinggreaff, 23d Force Support Squadron services apprentice. “I don't have to be limited to the few friends I work with. I get to meet new Airmen from different parts of the world, and that in itself betters my Air Force experience.”

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