An Outdoor Recreation program guide teaches airmen to ski during a trip to 49 Degrees North Ski Resort in Washington in December 2016. (Sean Campbell/U.S. Air Force)
The Air Force has again cut funding for a program that provides substantial discounts for recreational trips and other activities, a service spokeswoman told Stars and Stripes.
Recharge for Resiliency allows up to $200 per person per day to offset the cost of trips through Outdoor Recreation and Morale, Welfare and Recreation, according to a program guide published in January 2024.
Last year, approximately 120,000 airmen, guardians and their families participated in the program at reduced costs or no cost to them, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center, Debbie Aragon, said by email Jan. 22.
The federal budget has not paid for the program for the past several years, Aragon said.
Instead, money was reallocated from others areas to support the program, but not for fiscal year 2025, which began Oct. 1, and due to “competing priorities,” it will probably not be funded in fiscal 2026, she said.
Moving money for the program “was not viable” in fiscal 2025 due to funding constraints, Aragon added.
Launched in 2015, Recharge for Resiliency includes three components, the Single Airmen Program Initiative, RecOn and Deployed Affected Program. They offer something for nearly every service member stationed at an Air Force or Space Force base, from ski outings to tourist-destination bus trips.
The program was developed at the height of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom to subsidize social and recreation programs within the Force Support Squadrons and create an Air Force culture that supports a healthy and resilient lifestyle, Aragon said.
Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., will lose $60,000 for this year’s Recharge for Resiliency program, Kevin Ott, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant, told Stars and Stripes by phone Sunday.
He said he was shocked when he heard the news this month at a Black Hills Military Advisory Coalition meeting and wrote to his elected officials expressing concerns about the quality-of-life cut that could affect 400,000 airman and their families worldwide.
“If you have the greatest, shiniest new airplane out there, and if the people that are working on it, the people that are flying it, the people that are supporting it, if all those people are not at their 100% mentally and physically, then the airplane is not going to be as capable as it should be,” he said.
“When you start looking at the people aspect of things, you always want to be able to have everybody that wants to remain in the Air Force to remain and part of it is the quality of life,” Ott added.
