Latest / Where We Rise / 05 | Family in Flight | Military Family Community

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05 | Family in Flight | Military Family Community · Where We Rise

• 0:00
  Khalila McCoy: Hi, I'm Khalila McCoy, and this is the show that helps build communities.
• 0:06
  Khalila McCoy: This is Where We Rise.
• 0:08
  Khalila McCoy: Hey, welcome to this week's episode of Where We Rise.
• 0:14
  Khalila McCoy: I am excited for you to hear my conversation with Chelsea Thomas.
• 0:18
  Khalila McCoy: We actually recorded this episode back in January, so you're gonna hear us start the conversation laughing and talking about the weather, but I promise that's not the focus, and we will get back on track.
• 0:29
  Khalila McCoy: Chelsea is a military wife who founded her own nonprofit to support other families in similar living situations.
• 0:37
  Khalila McCoy: Now, I knew, like most of you, that the life of a military spouse or family comes with its own set of challenges, but I had never heard of geobatching before I met Chelsea.
• 0:49
  Khalila McCoy: So, listen in, get to know Chelsea, and learn how geo batching changed her life in more ways than one.
• 0:58
  Khalila McCoy: Hi Chelsea, how are you?
• 1:02
  Chelsea Thomas: I'm good.
• 1:03
  Chelsea Thomas: How are you?
• 1:04
  Khalila McCoy: Good.
• 1:04
  Khalila McCoy: I'm so excited that you're here today.
• 1:06
  Khalila McCoy: We kind of just went through this before.
• 1:08
  Khalila McCoy: Um but Chelsea and I were getting to know each other before we kind of jump into the podcast, and we already found out we have a small thing in common.
• 1:19
  Khalila McCoy: Her mom is from the same city that I grew up in, so that's kind of exciting to already make a small connection with somebody.
• 1:26
  Khalila McCoy: And Chelsea is in Florida, so it's snowing here today, and it's very cold.
• 1:31
  Khalila McCoy: It says it's 22, but it feels like 11.
• 1:34
  Khalila McCoy: So what's it like in Florida?
• 1:36
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh my gosh, I think it's 80 out right now.
• 1:38
  Chelsea Thomas: And so we're I have like all my fans on because I was so hot earlier in my house.
• 1:45
  Chelsea Thomas: And I got a heat on, I got a flannel on, and she's gonna t-shirt.
• 1:49
  Chelsea Thomas: I'm like, yeah, t-shirt and shorts.
• 1:51
  Chelsea Thomas: I was like, I can't, and we're I was supposed to take down Christmas decorations today, and that was a hard pass.
• 1:56
  Chelsea Thomas: I was like, it is just too hot for that.
• 1:59
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, see, we're the opposite, and everybody in Ohio is like, it's too cold, I'll leave them up another day or so.
• 2:04
  Khalila McCoy: It's supposed to get cold this week, and I love warm weather and the sunshine, so I wish I was where you were instead of here, but hello.
• 2:14
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, and we're supposed to have like cooler weather this weekend, so we're all really excited for like 50 and 60 degrees.
• 2:20
  Chelsea Thomas: Excited for it.
• 2:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Look at us and our winter snap.
• 2:25
  Khalila McCoy: That it would be a hot that would be a heat wave right now for us.
• 2:28
  Chelsea Thomas: So gosh, no, but we're all gonna have like our parkas and flannels and heat, all the things will be on for us.
• 2:34
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, and in high, they'll be like shorts and t-shirts, it's finally 50.
• 2:38
  Chelsea Thomas: Nope, not here.
• 2:40
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I love that, just how different the weather is.
• 2:43
  Khalila McCoy: Like, you know, we get a few inches of snow and we're like up truck through it, get your snow boots and other places like, shut down, what's happening?
• 2:50
  Khalila McCoy: Oh, yeah.
• 2:51
  Chelsea Thomas: Where my husband lives, which I'm sure we'll touch on this later, but where my husband lives, if it even flurries in the air, the whole city will shut down, schools are closed, like the whole thing.
• 3:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 3:01
  Chelsea Thomas: They cannot handle anything.
• 3:05
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Khalila McCoy: So I like that you said, like, where your husband lives, because that's what we're going to be talking about today.
• 3:12
  Khalila McCoy: So tell us a little bit about yourself and you and your husband living in different places.
• 3:18
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Chelsea Thomas: So um, I like you said, my name is Chelsea, and I'm a mom of four kids and three dogs.
• 3:24
  Chelsea Thomas: So we apparently really like chaos.
• 3:27
  Khalila McCoy: Yes.
• 3:28
  Chelsea Thomas: And um, I am a military spouse, and my husband is in the Air Force.
• 3:33
  Chelsea Thomas: And um, we've been together for several years, you know, and um I was kind of, you know, we were living together, we were going through deployments, we were going through short-term trips, and then all of a sudden it came up to him it was his time to move.
• 3:51
  Chelsea Thomas: And we knew from the very beginning, uh, because I have kids from a previous marriage, and so does he, that we were not going to be able to move together just due to our kids' situation.
• 4:02
  Chelsea Thomas: So we knew about this for a long time, but then the time actually came.
• 4:05
  Chelsea Thomas: And so my husband for the last four years has been living in Mississippi, and I live in Florida.
• 4:12
  Chelsea Thomas: And so it has been quite the journey to say the least, not just for me, but for the kids too, you know, just adjustments and everything that comes with it.
• 4:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but yeah, so you know, we're going into year four this year, uh, in 2026, and Lord help us.
• 4:32
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, that's a long time.
• 4:33
  Khalila McCoy: Now you said that you knew it was a possibility.
• 4:36
  Khalila McCoy: So is it the branch that he's in or his job that that's a possibility?
• 4:41
  Chelsea Thomas: So it's more so his job.
• 4:43
  Chelsea Thomas: I guess it's a branch and job combo of the two.
• 4:46
  Chelsea Thomas: So he's a pilot.
• 4:47
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and so with that, they rotate bases roughly every three to four years on a good time frame.
• 4:55
  Chelsea Thomas: Some are shorter, some can be a little bit longer, but on average it's about three to four years that you're stationed in one location.
• 5:03
  Chelsea Thomas: And so we had those, you know, through I think he was uh in Florida for maybe four years.
• 5:10
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 5:11
  Chelsea Thomas: Before he had to move.
• 5:12
  Chelsea Thomas: But you know, when you're with those together those four years, you're not you're including deployments, which, you know, are anywhere between four and six months.
• 5:19
  Chelsea Thomas: You're including these like short-term trips.
• 5:22
  Chelsea Thomas: So we actually looked at the data of it.
• 5:24
  Chelsea Thomas: And with him moving to Mississippi and us living apart, if I were to go up even once a month to go see him for a week, I would see him more while we live states apart than I did when we were both living in Florida, just because of like the job that he was doing in Florida versus Mississippi.
• 5:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, so I've actually seen him more the last four years than I think I would have if he stayed in Florida.
• 5:48
  Khalila McCoy: So that's interesting.
• 5:50
  Khalila McCoy: I would never have thought of that being.
• 5:52
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, he can't they like tell him at the end, like, you were gone this many days, you were home this many days, you deployed for this many days, and so he added it all up and was like, Oh my god, this is depressing.
• 6:04
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, I think he's gone for eight months of the year when he lived in Florida, and now he's never gone in Mississippi.
• 6:10
  Chelsea Thomas: I mean, he's gone in the sense of he's not in Florida, but from his job and from our home in Mississippi, he's never, never really gone.
• 6:18
  Khalila McCoy: Now you said every about three to four years it changes.
• 6:22
  Khalila McCoy: So this is year four.
• 6:24
  Khalila McCoy: Is he is there news yet?
• 6:26
  Khalila McCoy: Do you guys know is he moving somewhere else?
• 6:28
  Chelsea Thomas: So hopefully he'll be moving back home, which is super exciting.
• 6:32
  Chelsea Thomas: Uh however, with the military, you as a spouse, you kind of learn to not hold your breath with it.
• 6:38
  Chelsea Thomas: Okay.
• 6:38
  Chelsea Thomas: So we were told he could be home between like March and May, and we were super of 2026.
• 6:44
  Chelsea Thomas: We were super excited, and then it turned into June, and then it turned into November.
• 6:49
  Chelsea Thomas: And so it's like, yes, he might be home.
• 6:51
  Chelsea Thomas: He's supposed to, he's he's coming home at some point in the next year or so.
• 6:56
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so it's just kind of amazing.
• 6:58
  Khalila McCoy: And it's guaranteed like it will be Florida, it's not somewhere else.
• 7:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 7:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 7:02
  Chelsea Thomas: So we were really excited because those odds are so, so slim.
• 7:05
  Chelsea Thomas: But I think that leadership really took into consideration our our position of it's called geo-batching.
• 7:11
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and it's where your military spouse and family don't live together for an extended amount of time that is not what is called a TDY, which is typically a short-term trip or a deployment.
• 7:23
  Chelsea Thomas: Those are very separated from geo batching.
• 7:26
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and so I think that the the leadership was like, hey, you've done four years apart from your family.
• 7:32
  Chelsea Thomas: We'll try to try to get you back.
• 7:33
  Chelsea Thomas: Try to get you back.
• 7:34
  Chelsea Thomas: Down in Florida was our goal, you know, but at least he's coming home.
• 7:39
  Chelsea Thomas: Last we heard was he was coming home home, you know, so not even just in the state.
• 7:42
  Chelsea Thomas: He'll be home with you guys.
• 7:44
  Khalila McCoy: That's exciting.
• 7:45
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 7:46
  Khalila McCoy: So you said too, geo batching versus deployment.
• 7:49
  Khalila McCoy: Tell us the difference between those two.
• 7:52
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 7:52
  Chelsea Thomas: So this is a really great, I love when people ask me this question because I think that geobatching and deployments, and like I said, TDYs and short-term trips um and short-term school stents, they all get kind of like lumped into one and they're so different.
• 8:06
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, you know, so in terms of deployment, which a lot of what it's what geobatching is compared to, um, it's very, very different.
• 8:15
  Chelsea Thomas: So when you are a military family and your spouse deploys, you are tied to the base that they are with.
• 8:25
  Chelsea Thomas: And typically you're living there with them.
• 8:27
  Chelsea Thomas: So when my husband would deploy, he would deploy from Florida, and I had a group of other spouses who were all in the same boat as me.
• 8:35
  Chelsea Thomas: Every spouse was deployed.
• 8:37
  Chelsea Thomas: We all were solo parenting for the four to six months, however long it was going to be.
• 8:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Um we did, you know, we had a big community.
• 8:46
  Chelsea Thomas: So we would get together so that our kids could play and we could catch up and just kind of have like a breath of fresh air so that we weren't doing this alone.
• 8:53
  Chelsea Thomas: Or, you know, during deployments, there's scholarship opportunities for your kids so that you can apply for funding to put them in an after-school care program, which will help you as the parent, you know, obviously, have a little bit more time, whether you're working or staying home or whatever.
• 9:09
  Chelsea Thomas: So you have scholarship opportunities.
• 9:11
  Chelsea Thomas: And then you have things like free child care nights at your base if you're if your spouse is deployed, which is wonderful.
• 9:19
  Chelsea Thomas: Like I used all three of those when my husband would deploy, and they were awesome services.
• 9:25
  Chelsea Thomas: And then they come home, and everybody comes home at once, the whole squadron, the whole you know, platoon, depending on what branch you're in.
• 9:33
  Chelsea Thomas: They all come home basically at the same time, and it's this beautiful reunification, and all those like really fun military reuniting photos and videos online.
• 9:42
  Khalila McCoy: I love those.
• 9:43
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, yeah, so we have lots of those, and so then you kind of go back to normal life, and it's wonderful.
• 9:48
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and you've built these relationships and the bonds with these other spouses who just went through this like terrible deployment.
• 9:55
  Chelsea Thomas: Geo batching is so vastly different, it is wild.
• 10:00
  Chelsea Thomas: So when you're geobatching, I am no longer tied to the Florida base that I live next to.
• 10:07
  Chelsea Thomas: I have no support, I have no resources.
• 10:09
  Chelsea Thomas: I can go on base and do my shopping and things like that.
• 10:12
  Chelsea Thomas: But in terms of childcare, I don't have any more free nights.
• 10:15
  Chelsea Thomas: Um I don't have opportunities for scholarships for my kids for after school.
• 10:21
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, if I'm about to go through a hurricane, I have no support to help me with that.
• 10:28
  Chelsea Thomas: I have to do it all by myself or try to figure out how to get my husband home, type of situation, because I am tied to the base that he is at in Mississippi.
• 10:36
  Chelsea Thomas: So my, they call him key spouses or spouse liaisons.
• 10:40
  Chelsea Thomas: My go-to people are all in Mississippi.
• 10:43
  Chelsea Thomas: I don't have anyone here.
• 10:44
  Chelsea Thomas: So although I don't really yeah, and so that's like one of the big things that I don't think people really realize is that I don't have the support of the giant military base that I'm next to.
• 10:55
  Chelsea Thomas: And I don't have the resources that are offered during a deployment during geobatching.
• 11:01
  Chelsea Thomas: And honestly, geo batching is more expensive, it's more taxing emotionally, it's more taxing physically.
• 11:07
  Chelsea Thomas: There's so many different elements, and I want to make it very clear: deployments are extremely hard on their own.
• 11:14
  Chelsea Thomas: Geobatching is extremely hard on their own.
• 11:16
  Chelsea Thomas: They both come with their unique set of challenges and positives on both sides, but it's so different.
• 11:23
  Chelsea Thomas: So, like for people to lump in geobatching to deployment, I love when people ask, like, what's the difference?
• 11:29
  Chelsea Thomas: Because it's so vastly different.
• 11:31
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 11:32
  Khalila McCoy: And I would not have thought that like that support would be is the idea like they wanted you to move to Mississippi.
• 11:39
  Khalila McCoy: So since you didn't, it's almost kind of like a you're being penalized in a sense.
• 11:44
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, sort of.
• 11:45
  Chelsea Thomas: I mean, so the military, they recognize geo bouching, but again, there's nothing for it.
• 11:50
  Chelsea Thomas: So they don't the only branch that offers any additional type of assistance is the army, and they it's like additional housing.
• 11:59
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but that is a lot of hoops to jump through in and of itself.
• 12:04
  Chelsea Thomas: So, like, in terms of like overarching military, geo bouching they would prefer it to not be a thing.
• 12:10
  Chelsea Thomas: They prefer the whole family to go and and you know be together, which every family geo bouching would also really like that.
• 12:18
  Khalila McCoy: Yes.
• 12:19
  Chelsea Thomas: You just can't due to a myriad of reasons.
• 12:22
  Chelsea Thomas: And um, so yeah, so it's like, well, you are on your husband's orders or your wife's orders, and they moved, so therefore you technically move too.
• 12:32
  Chelsea Thomas: So every like I had to keep all of I had to do so much stuff to keep my health care in Florida versus changing it all to Mississippi because that's where our in, you know, like just even stuff like that.
• 12:42
  Chelsea Thomas: It's like, oh my gosh.
• 12:44
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 12:46
  Chelsea Thomas: So yeah, it's it's a lot to go through when you're living this separated life, not by choice, because nine out of ten times it's not a choice.
• 12:55
  Chelsea Thomas: It's a right, it's a forced choice, is what we all say.
• 12:59
  Khalila McCoy: And you said before, like you knew this was coming up, so you guys already knew like moving was not gonna be the in the best interest of your family.
• 13:06
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, so for us, because I have kids from a previous marriage, we have split custody, and looking at the betterment of my kids, it was okay, I could take the kids either for the school year or for the summer, and then vice versa, they would be with their dad so that we could keep it pretty even.
• 13:22
  Chelsea Thomas: But would that be the best interest of my children to go through the fighting, to go through the battle, to go through the court and do all of that?
• 13:30
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 13:31
  Chelsea Thomas: To then uproot them for six, eight months of the year to then have them be uprooted again to go back to the other parent.
• 13:40
  Chelsea Thomas: And for us, that was never an option.
• 13:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, our kids, you know, were coming first in that specific decision.
• 13:47
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, you know, and their dad's a good dad, so why not let them be with their dad?
• 13:51
  Chelsea Thomas: And why take them from that?
• 13:52
  Chelsea Thomas: And why take them from me, you know, good chunks of the year?
• 13:56
  Chelsea Thomas: And so it was just one of those that it was never really an option, and we knew it coming into this.
• 14:00
  Chelsea Thomas: So we were able to prepare with like therapy and conversations and you know, really kind of, but not everyone has that, you know, they don't always think that this is gonna be a thing for them, and it kind of comes out of nowhere.
• 14:14
  Khalila McCoy: So you were able to prepare a little bit better.
• 14:17
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh, yeah, lots of therapy heading up to it of how do we make this work?
• 14:20
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, what is the best, you know, communication tips, or you know, how do we make it feel like we're still a priority for each other when we're not seeing each other and we can't physically be the priority, so we have to do it through phone calls or you know, things like that were really, really helpful for us leading up to this and leading up to him moving.
• 14:42
  Khalila McCoy: What was it like for you when he first moved?
• 14:45
  Khalila McCoy: And like you said, all that support dropped, even in the preparation.
• 14:49
  Khalila McCoy: Did it hit you like, oh crap, like this is real now and this is really hard?
• 14:56
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, we talk so um the nonprofit that I run, we have a support group, and we talk in the support group often about those like days and weeks and months leading up to the military service member leaving.
• 15:08
  Chelsea Thomas: And it is you can prepare all you want, and it's not gonna matter.
• 15:13
  Chelsea Thomas: At the end of the day, it is so sucky to say the least.
• 15:18
  Chelsea Thomas: And it and again, it's such a different feeling than a deployment.
• 15:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I remember when my husband would go on deployments, and those first like week, I was like really sad, but I was cleaning my house, I was watching whatever show I wanted, I was doing all these things, and I would go on trips in the middle of his deployments and all of these like fun things to keep me occupied.
• 15:37
  Chelsea Thomas: And geobatching becomes your lifestyle.
• 15:40
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 15:41
  Chelsea Thomas: So solo parenting becomes the norm for the next several years, you know, it's not just the next several months.
• 15:48
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and you know, just even like traveling, I always forget to like get groceries on my way home from seeing my husband, and then I get home and my kids come and we have no food, and I'm like, crap, you know, like that's part of just being gone so often because I do have the ability to see him.
• 16:05
  Chelsea Thomas: But those first few days, I remember I was like, okay, this is no big deal.
• 16:08
  Chelsea Thomas: Like it's like he was on a trip, and I don't think it really hit me until we were like a month or two in of this reality, because it was like, oh, we've done a few weeks apart, you know, we've done even a few months apart with deployment, but it was just more eye-opening later on to be like, oh, this is this is long term, you know, like this is this is not ending anytime soon.
• 16:33
  Chelsea Thomas: He is not coming back anytime soon, you know, like it was just the reality check, and then that's when it all was like, oh my gosh, I hate this.
• 16:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, I don't want to do this, you know, but again, just really trying to reframe my brain of like this is for the kids, right?
• 16:49
  Chelsea Thomas: We're doing this for the kids, and this is short term.
• 16:52
  Chelsea Thomas: If you think about like life in the grand scheme of things, you know, three to five years, let's say, is it long?
• 16:59
  Chelsea Thomas: Definitely, yeah, very long, lots of milestones, lots of things missed, but then he's home, you know, and like we're like, okay, we can do this, we can make it through these three to five years.
• 17:11
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and we get to go see him often because it's drivable, so it makes it a little bit better.
• 17:15
  Chelsea Thomas: So we can all hop in the car whenever we want and drive and go see my husband and hang out with him and then come on back.
• 17:21
  Chelsea Thomas: And not everybody has the ability to do that.
• 17:24
  Chelsea Thomas: Some people are literally across the country.
• 17:27
  Khalila McCoy: And I'm sure that depends on too, like you have your own job.
• 17:31
  Khalila McCoy: So depend depending on what your job is, if you financially can't afford, right?
• 17:36
  Khalila McCoy: Like if your husband is across the country, I might not be able to afford to jump on a plane and see him frequently.
• 17:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, so and that's really how our organization started was out of frustration of finances because I used to fly every other week.
• 17:51
  Chelsea Thomas: So I would fly to go see my husband.
• 17:53
  Chelsea Thomas: We paid for parking at the like a little off-site parking for the airport, and then I would drive to go see him because it you can't fly into his city.
• 18:00
  Chelsea Thomas: It's real fun.
• 18:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and so I remember I was driving home.
• 18:04
  Chelsea Thomas: It was like one of the first several times I had driven, probably the first 10, 15, and it's a 10 and a half hour drive.
• 18:10
  Chelsea Thomas: And I was so mad, and I was like, there's gotta be an organization where I can apply for funding so that I can go fly and see my husband.
• 18:17
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, this is crazy.
• 18:19
  Chelsea Thomas: My kids never see him.
• 18:20
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, I was just really frustrated and upset at how expensive everything was.
• 18:26
  Chelsea Thomas: And then the more I looked, the more I realized there is no support for geobatching, and there is no travel grants that apply for it.
• 18:35
  Chelsea Thomas: And even the ones that are like, you know, scholarships for kids for deployed parents, geo batchers don't qualify for that, so we can't even offset those kid costs, you know.
• 18:44
  Chelsea Thomas: And so, um, yeah, so that's how family and flight started, honestly, was out of the finances of like, you know, and it's very much a real thing.
• 18:54
  Chelsea Thomas: There's so many families who are part of our organization who can't see their spouse except for maybe once every six months because they just can't afford it because taking off of work and kids' schedules and buying multiple tickets to fly across country is not cheap.
• 19:12
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 19:12
  Khalila McCoy: What was the process of starting Family and Flight?
• 19:17
  Chelsea Thomas: So out of frustration, obviously, of just you know, driving and trying to figure out what I could do.
• 19:24
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, because again, the more I looked into it, the more I realized there wasn't anything to support families like mine, but there was a lot of families like mine out there, the more I did some digging.
• 19:35
  Chelsea Thomas: And so I decided, you know, I had started my own companies before, but never a nonprofit.
• 19:40
  Chelsea Thomas: So I did some digging on how to start that.
• 19:43
  Chelsea Thomas: I filed all my paperwork for Florida, did all of like the legal stuff, and I hit the ground running.
• 19:48
  Chelsea Thomas: So I do work a full-time job Monday through Friday, you know, but I have the beauty of working from home.
• 19:54
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but every night for probably the first month of working on this, I was up, you know, until 11 or 12 at night filing paperwork, reaching out to people to see if they wanted to be on my board, coming up with bylaws, you know, like all the nitty-gritty stuff, and then just trying to figure out our mission and vision, right?
• 20:13
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, what are we doing?
• 20:15
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, what's the point in this and how are we gonna help?
• 20:17
  Chelsea Thomas: And so we originally started as a travel grant program.
• 20:21
  Chelsea Thomas: And the goal was to provide travel grants to families um so that they could see each other.
• 20:27
  Chelsea Thomas: So, like this past Christmas in 2025, we um were able to support a family, and they got to so the service member got to fly home and surprise the six kids that they have, and it was like the I mean, I was like sobbing at the videos that she sent me, you know.
• 20:44
  Chelsea Thomas: But so that was our goal.
• 20:45
  Chelsea Thomas: That was it.
• 20:46
  Chelsea Thomas: Like we were just gonna do travel grants.
• 20:48
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 20:49
  Chelsea Thomas: And then nothing took off.
• 20:50
  Chelsea Thomas: And it was we had a lot of momentum, we had a lot of traction, but there was no engagement.
• 20:56
  Chelsea Thomas: And we were like, what is going on?
• 20:57
  Chelsea Thomas: Like we opened up applications, we had a little bit of money, like we were like, So you're saying people weren't applying for the grant?
• 21:05
  Chelsea Thomas: Nobody, nobody was applying, and so we were like, what is happening?
• 21:08
  Chelsea Thomas: So almost a year to the day that we started, we did a focus group and we pulled a bunch of our followers and we said, Hey, what do you need in this in this spot in life?
• 21:19
  Chelsea Thomas: And nobody said travel grants.
• 21:22
  Chelsea Thomas: So we sort of did a 180.
• 21:26
  Chelsea Thomas: Uh, I sat there and I could have taken it really hard.
• 21:30
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, I've learned.
• 21:32
  Chelsea Thomas: I would just kind of took it and was like, okay, great, what are we gonna do now?
• 21:35
  Chelsea Thomas: And so we have then since launched support groups.
• 21:38
  Chelsea Thomas: So everybody just said that they were lacking community, and that is what I felt too.
• 21:43
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, yeah, you mentioned that it was so hard to have nobody around and nobody understand what I was going through.
• 21:50
  Chelsea Thomas: And even my military friends, they're like, Well, why are you doing this again?
• 21:53
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, and right no hate on them, like they just didn't fully they weren't fully understanding why our family had.
• 21:59
  Chelsea Thomas: To do this and why it wasn't worth fighting, right?
• 22:03
  Chelsea Thomas: And so we swapped and we moved to support groups, which is like our main priority, is finding your community within family and flight.
• 22:12
  Chelsea Thomas: And those took off so fast.
• 22:14
  Chelsea Thomas: Those are, you know, the beginning of the month, every first Wednesday of the month, we have a virtual support group where all of the families who are geobatching jump on to have a community to be like, I'm struggling, I'm having a really hard time, or hey, I get to go see my spouse next week, and we all get to celebrate together, knowing what that means, you know?
• 22:35
  Khalila McCoy: Yes.
• 22:35
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and then we also decided to start offering um commu it's part of our community program, and it's just gift cards.
• 22:43
  Chelsea Thomas: So part of geobatching is finances are really hard, but not in the sense of traveling, because again, PTO is really, you know, hard to come by.
• 22:53
  Chelsea Thomas: Kids get like there's so many different factors that go into just here's a travel grant, go see your spouse, you know.
• 22:59
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and so we start offering gift cards.
• 23:02
  Chelsea Thomas: So Starbucks gift cards, Target gift cards, Uber Eats gift cards, just to offset, just even if it's a $25 thing.
• 23:10
  Chelsea Thomas: But yeah, like you gotta, you know, or like Starbucks, like I send it out and I joke almost every gift card I send.
• 23:17
  Chelsea Thomas: And I'm like, if today wasn't a bad day, either yesterday was or tomorrow's gonna be.
• 23:21
  Chelsea Thomas: So like So get yourself something.
• 23:23
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, call create that.
• 23:25
  Chelsea Thomas: Because you just never know with like the geo batching life.
• 23:29
  Chelsea Thomas: And so um, so yeah, so we really swapped and so we still offer those grants, right?
• 23:35
  Chelsea Thomas: Like we still have our applications open, we still have our committee to review, like all of that is still an option for our followers, but we really honed in on the community aspect, which is really what everyone was just so desperate for, and that is really where we've really seen growth and you know, where people are like, hey, we needed this.
• 23:56
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 23:56
  Chelsea Thomas: And as much as they need it, I also need it, you know, like I need those support groups just as much as they do.
• 24:04
  Khalila McCoy: Now, is this from word of mouth or are you able to ask the branches to advertise this for you?
• 24:11
  Chelsea Thomas: Uh so we can ask our individual like squadrons, platoons, um, you know, whatever it is you might be part of.
• 24:22
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 24:22
  Chelsea Thomas: And we can talk to our individual bases, you know, in terms of like myself, any of my board members or followers, things like that.
• 24:29
  Chelsea Thomas: But to get on the bases is extremely hard.
• 24:32
  Chelsea Thomas: Um and a lot of them want, you know, like funding for advertising.
• 24:36
  Chelsea Thomas: And I'm like, nope, every dollar literally goes back into helping our community.
• 24:40
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 24:40
  Chelsea Thomas: So we're not gonna spend for advertising.
• 24:42
  Chelsea Thomas: If you see us advertising, it's my own money that has gone into it to get the word out.
• 24:49
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so no, it really is just by word of mouth and social media.
• 24:52
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, I think social media, as much as I might not like it personally, it really has done wonders for family in flight and just sort of getting our name out there.
• 25:04
  Khalila McCoy: What is one of the most difficult parts of the organization or like running this?
• 25:12
  Chelsea Thomas: All the ideas that I have.
• 25:14
  Chelsea Thomas: Okay.
• 25:15
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, I was like, like making time for them.
• 25:18
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, I was just talking to one of our volunteers earlier today, and uh, she was like, I don't know how you do it.
• 25:23
  Chelsea Thomas: And I'm like, I have so many notebooks, my notes app on my phone is full of you know, I just want to do so many things because this community is such a passion of mine.
• 25:32
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, not just because I'm in it, but because I feel for these people.
• 25:36
  Chelsea Thomas: Because fun fact, out of 40,000 plus military-focused and veteran-focused uh nonprofits, we are the only one that solely focuses on geobatching.
• 25:50
  Chelsea Thomas: So there are a very select few, limited amount that touch on geo batching, but they go, hey, here's the resource, go go do it yourself.
• 25:59
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, they don't offer travel grants community support, you know, they don't do any of that.
• 26:05
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and so for us, it's like this amazing opportunity and also very overwhelming because Yeah, you're the only one, so everybody's coming to you.
• 26:14
  Khalila McCoy: How many people would you say is are in your community?
• 26:19
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, I would say probably a few hundred based off of just our platform.
• 26:23
  Chelsea Thomas: So we're still we're going into year two.
• 26:26
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so we haven't been around very long at all.
• 26:29
  Chelsea Thomas: Like in August of 26, it will be two years.
• 26:32
  Chelsea Thomas: So it's really only a year and a half right now.
• 26:34
  Chelsea Thomas: But we've had such amazing opportunities at speaking at conferences, you know, talking about this.
• 26:39
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, you know, we've had fairly large organizations reach out to us and be like, hey, we really like what you guys are doing.
• 26:46
  Chelsea Thomas: Let's figure out a partnership.
• 26:47
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, so like it's one of those that really is taking off because a lot of the military community knows this term of geobatching, but a lot don't.
• 26:58
  Chelsea Thomas: So a lot of people are unaware they're even in this position.
• 27:00
  Chelsea Thomas: And then when they find out, they're like, oh, this is amazing, you know.
• 27:03
  Chelsea Thomas: Um so yeah, it's been um just a wild ride with just all the ideas that I have and want to implement.
• 27:10
  Chelsea Thomas: And it's really hard to like focus and be like, okay, what makes sense right now?
• 27:14
  Chelsea Thomas: And what do we like?
• 27:15
  Chelsea Thomas: Let's scale this out.
• 27:17
  Chelsea Thomas: It doesn't, it's not a race to the finish.
• 27:19
  Chelsea Thomas: We can, you know, slow it down and it's gonna be okay.
• 27:23
  Chelsea Thomas: I'd rather have quality stuff for this community than just slapping things on the wall like spaghetti.
• 27:29
  Khalila McCoy: And then it burns out, yeah.
• 27:30
  Khalila McCoy: It doesn't work.
• 27:30
  Khalila McCoy: Can you share with us one of your ideas that you're excited about that might not be fully fine-tuned yet, but yes.
• 27:38
  Chelsea Thomas: So we are almost done with, and it might be done by the time this comes out, an ebook um that families can download that is the real raw truth of geobatching.
• 27:52
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 27:52
  Chelsea Thomas: And so I wrote an ebook to just kind of be like, hey, if you're thinking about this, here are some things to talk about it, you know.
• 28:00
  Chelsea Thomas: And if you are already in it, here's some ways to like push through.
• 28:04
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and it's just it's, you know, all from my perspective and my journey and my story.
• 28:10
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but it's very real.
• 28:12
  Chelsea Thomas: And so it's we like I don't sugarcoat in this, but I'm like super excited for this ebook to come out because I've been working on it for like, oh gosh, four or five months now.
• 28:23
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Khalila McCoy: What's it called?
• 28:24
  Chelsea Thomas: It's called The Real Raw Truth of Geobatching.
• 28:28
  Khalila McCoy: Okay, I'm writing this down.
• 28:30
  Khalila McCoy: And you think it will come out when?
• 28:32
  Chelsea Thomas: I'm hoping in like by the end of January.
• 28:35
  Chelsea Thomas: Okay.
• 28:36
  Chelsea Thomas: Um so we'll see.
• 28:38
  Chelsea Thomas: It's as much as I can get edited, and my brand director can, you know, have her editing eyes on it, and my PR can get, you know, like we got so many hands that need to touch it before we can officially publish it.
• 28:50
  Chelsea Thomas: But we're in the final phases, and I'm congratulations.
• 28:53
  Khalila McCoy: That's really exciting.
• 28:55
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 28:56
  Khalila McCoy: So you're a businesswoman, an author.
• 28:58
  Khalila McCoy: What else are you gonna do?
• 29:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, you know, I got my word.
• 29:07
  Khalila McCoy: All of the things.
• 29:08
  Chelsea Thomas: I'm like, I can hardly keep up either, but like, let's go.
• 29:12
  Khalila McCoy: It's worth it, yeah.
• 29:14
  Chelsea Thomas: Where it's nice too, like when we do have these support groups, like we have people coming on just in tears with being grateful with finding this organization, you know.
• 29:26
  Chelsea Thomas: And for me, it's not about the recognition of like, oh, look what I did.
• 29:31
  Chelsea Thomas: It's look what my team did, look what the community is doing, and just to be able to help that one or two, you know, new people that pop on or the recurring people who are there every single month because this is their lifeline.
• 29:44
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've cried on these support groups, like and I'm not a crier.
• 29:50
  Chelsea Thomas: And it's just one of those, like, wow, it's really making a difference in this this geobatching community.
• 29:56
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Khalila McCoy: Tell us about a time that either you cried or you were just really happy for a family that you supported.
• 30:03
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh, I think, like I said, I think I cry almost every support group now.
• 30:08
  Chelsea Thomas: I think it's just one of like this most recent one in the beginning of January of 26.
• 30:13
  Chelsea Thomas: I remember I was just really down.
• 30:15
  Chelsea Thomas: I had just left a visit with my husband with my kids.
• 30:19
  Chelsea Thomas: So we had that moment of like feeling like a full family.
• 30:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Um the normality of it.
• 30:24
  Chelsea Thomas: He was still working, I was still working while we were up there, the kids were doing their thing, you know, but just being nor a normal family.
• 30:32
  Chelsea Thomas: And when we had to leave, I was really on, I was just so mad that like this was our life.
• 30:37
  Chelsea Thomas: And um, I remember I almost canceled the support group because I lead it, and I was just like, I am not, I don't, I do not want to talk to these people.
• 30:44
  Chelsea Thomas: Like I'm not a happy person.
• 30:47
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, normally try to be positive and like real about it, but also like let's see the good about it.
• 30:52
  Chelsea Thomas: And um this time I got on and was like, guys, I'm not, I am not feeling it.
• 30:57
  Chelsea Thomas: And all of them were like, neither are we.
• 30:59
  Chelsea Thomas: Here's all of our reasons why.
• 31:00
  Chelsea Thomas: It was all basically the same reasons, and we all were like, Wow, this was really great, you know.
• 31:06
  Chelsea Thomas: And so, like again, just being able to talk to people who understand and to cry and say, I'm really sad that I had to drive back and leave my husband, you know, like my kids are really sad that they had to leave their stepdad.
• 31:20
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, it just sucks.
• 31:22
  Chelsea Thomas: And sometimes when you tell even military friends, you're like, Yeah, it sucks.
• 31:25
  Chelsea Thomas: And they're like, Yeah, but it's gonna get better.
• 31:27
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, you only have a year, and they mean well, and I genuinely appreciate when they are like, Yeah, but this is the year that he should come home, and this is the you know, like all those things.
• 31:36
  Chelsea Thomas: It's amazing.
• 31:37
  Chelsea Thomas: But in that moment, I'm like, I just need somebody who understands how that's exactly what you're feeling.
• 31:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, what's going on, and so I think again, you know, just every support girl.
• 31:46
  Chelsea Thomas: We have one girl who poor thing, she um they were geo batching uh because she is in school and he is at a base and she was finishing her program and in the middle of geo batching, he got deployed.
• 32:00
  Chelsea Thomas: So now she is dealing with that, and when you think of it in that, like when somebody goes through that piece, it's really hard when the service member comes home from deployment because it's not like if my husband were to come home, I would be ready and waiting, you know, because typically they call you 30 minutes ahead of time and you gotta like race to the base and get there on time.
• 32:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Really?
• 32:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh, yeah, it's like you don't actually really know when they're coming home.
• 32:26
  Chelsea Thomas: So you got you're on guard all day because you're like it'll be between three and six p.m., but you don't know exactly when.
• 32:33
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 32:34
  Chelsea Thomas: So for her who lives hours and hours away, she doesn't have that luxury.
• 32:38
  Chelsea Thomas: So now she has to figure out where she's gonna stay because they don't have a place there anymore because he deployed and they got rid of it.
• 32:44
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, so it's all of these different things that nobody thinks about.
• 32:47
  Chelsea Thomas: Everyone's just like, yay, they're coming home for deployment.
• 32:50
  Chelsea Thomas: And she's like, I'm excited, but oh my gosh, like I have so much, you know.
• 32:55
  Chelsea Thomas: So just having her to be able to have that moment on the support group to like all of us cry and be like, we've been through deployments, we've been through geo matching, all of it just sucks for you right now, you know.
• 33:05
  Chelsea Thomas: She's like, What do I do?
• 33:06
  Chelsea Thomas: And I'm like, I have no answers for you, you know.
• 33:09
  Chelsea Thomas: And so it's just things like that where I yeah, I think I could keep going on story after story with these support groups on how everybody has a little bit of a different story and what it means and how important it is to have that community.
• 33:24
  Khalila McCoy: So thinking about because even you talked about military families who just have deployment deployment, they don't fully understand geobatching, and then me as a just a regular civilian who didn't even know this existed before you came across my feed.
• 33:38
  Khalila McCoy: Um, what would you say would be supportive?
• 33:41
  Khalila McCoy: So, like let's say we're friends and you're telling me about this, you know, you don't want to hear, like, oh, it'll be okay, it's almost over.
• 33:46
  Khalila McCoy: Like, how could you support a family?
• 33:48
  Khalila McCoy: What could you say in that moment?
• 33:50
  Khalila McCoy: Is it just being quiet and listening to their struggle?
• 33:54
  Khalila McCoy: Is it asking them, like, can I do something for you?
• 33:56
  Khalila McCoy: What would be supportive from somebody outside of this?
• 33:59
  Khalila McCoy: Yes.
• 34:01
  Chelsea Thomas: I think that like one of the biggest things that I always try to tell people, if you financially have the ability to help, send them a gift card.
• 34:09
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I can't tell you how far that goes for a family in need, even a $10 gift card.
• 34:15
  Chelsea Thomas: Like a uh here's a $10 target gift card.
• 34:20
  Chelsea Thomas: That helps alleviate $10 of their finances.
• 34:23
  Chelsea Thomas: And it might sound not sound a lot to like the normal person or you know, somebody who is in the military and you know, all of these things, but would we're paying, because we for military families we get base housing allowance, but it's only covering for for one house.
• 34:39
  Chelsea Thomas: We don't get two of those stipends.
• 34:42
  Khalila McCoy: That's true, yeah.
• 34:43
  Chelsea Thomas: So we have two mortgages and two electric bills and two water bills and two like two of everything.
• 34:48
  Chelsea Thomas: So ten dollars might not sound like a lot to the normal person or even the military normal person, but ten dollars can go a long way for or honestly, that ten dollars can maybe give that that parent who is back home with kids or working full-time or going to school, we're not spending a ton of money on ourselves because everything is so expensive.
• 35:09
  Chelsea Thomas: And if you send me a $10 Starbucks gift card, I now get to go enjoy a lovely little cup of coffee, you know?
• 35:16
  Chelsea Thomas: But then if finances are not something that you can do, is just being there to, like you said, listen and to say, I'm sorry.
• 35:24
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I'm sorry you're going through this.
• 35:26
  Chelsea Thomas: Don't try to empathize with them or sympathize, empathize.
• 35:30
  Chelsea Thomas: Either one both, be sympathetic, I guess, towards the situation, but don't pretend unless you've been there, what it's like, because that's the other thing that a lot of this community is like.
• 35:43
  Chelsea Thomas: Everyone's like, Oh, I'm so sorry.
• 35:45
  Chelsea Thomas: My spouse went on a work trip for a week, and I missed, and I'm like, girl, that is not the same.
• 35:50
  Chelsea Thomas: Right, that is so different, you know.
• 35:54
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I wish I could go, like, my husband was just on a work trip for a week or two.
• 35:59
  Chelsea Thomas: So it's just things like that of like the listening and the apologizing for the situation they're in, and understanding without taking away the importance of those feelings, because this again wasn't necessarily a choice that we wanted to make, and most of the time it was a choice that was forced upon us.
• 36:19
  Chelsea Thomas: And so to just also have that understanding that this person didn't choose to live states apart, you know, it's not like they stayed because it was easier by any means, um but they chose to stay for either the better betterment of their kids, or some of these families have um children who have extreme medical needs.
• 36:40
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 36:41
  Chelsea Thomas: And when you like one one family that was on our support group, she um the reason they geobatched for two years was because her son had therapy Monday through Friday and it was three hours a day.
• 36:53
  Chelsea Thomas: And um, she the wait list at the new base was gonna be six to eight months for all three therapies.
• 37:00
  Chelsea Thomas: And she said my son could not go six to eight months without these, so they had to stay where they were or have their child suffer for six to eight months.
• 37:10
  Khalila McCoy: So the obvious choices, yeah.
• 37:12
  Khalila McCoy: Like what are you gonna do?
• 37:14
  Chelsea Thomas: You're you're picking it for your kid, you know.
• 37:16
  Chelsea Thomas: So there's things like that, there's job requirements for some of these people, there's school pro like there's just so many different things that people don't understand.
• 37:23
  Chelsea Thomas: It's not like we picked this because we enjoy living apart from our spouse.
• 37:26
  Chelsea Thomas: So, like just being understanding of that piece of it too, is that sure it was a choice, but it was not a happy choice.
• 37:35
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 37:36
  Khalila McCoy: When you get to go see your husband, how many days are you guys together?
• 37:41
  Chelsea Thomas: So I am one of the lucky few um that I get to see my husband almost every other week because my kids are with their dad every other week.
• 37:50
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, this is not the norm.
• 37:51
  Chelsea Thomas: So I want to make that very clear to anyone listening who's in this position.
• 37:56
  Chelsea Thomas: If you are not seeing your spouse that often, that is very normal to not see them.
• 38:01
  Chelsea Thomas: We just are drivable and my work schedule, I can finagle things around.
• 38:07
  Chelsea Thomas: So um I we try to see each other at least once a month, if not those two weeks a month.
• 38:13
  Chelsea Thomas: And when we do get like the ideal time, it's about 10 days a month that we get to see each other.
• 38:18
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 38:19
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 38:19
  Chelsea Thomas: So 10, 12 days, depending on kids and stuff.
• 38:23
  Chelsea Thomas: So yeah, it's not a ton, but when we don't get it, like right now we're in a a bit of a bigger gap and we're both like, ugh, this is dumb.
• 38:31
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 38:34
  Chelsea Thomas: So we try not to, because we've gotten pretty used to that every other week schedule.
• 38:38
  Khalila McCoy: What do you feel like you've learned the most about yourself through starting this organization or just figuring it out without him being there?
• 38:52
  Chelsea Thomas: Ma so growing up, my mom used to always say, You are the most independent little girl child I ever met, you know.
• 38:58
  Chelsea Thomas: And so growing up, like that's just what I always had in my head.
• 39:02
  Chelsea Thomas: I don't think I was as independent as she thought I was.
• 39:05
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but it has very much made me a very self-dependent person.
• 39:12
  Chelsea Thomas: It also has taught me to ask for help, which I know those two sound contradicting, but I was not one prior to this to ask for help.
• 39:22
  Chelsea Thomas: I would just do it myself.
• 39:23
  Chelsea Thomas: I would power through.
• 39:25
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh, for example, this is my favorite story to tell.
• 39:28
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, in the beginning of our geobatching experience, um, in Florida, we have lots of leaves that fall.
• 39:35
  Chelsea Thomas: It's like like northern fall, but it's like much, much longer time frame where I am.
• 39:41
  Chelsea Thomas: And so our roof gets super flooded with leaves.
• 39:45
  Chelsea Thomas: And so my husband used to always do it.
• 39:47
  Chelsea Thomas: And even when he would come home to visit while we've been geobatching, he would blow the roof off.
• 39:53
  Chelsea Thomas: Well, for some reason, I don't remember the whole situation, but it hadn't been done in a while, and I was like, I'm gonna go do it myself.
• 40:00
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, how hard can it be to blow off the roof of leaves?
• 40:03
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh my gosh, I got stuck on my roof.
• 40:05
  Chelsea Thomas: I I climbed up my roof and I started blowing everything off.
• 40:11
  Chelsea Thomas: I did not bring my phone, I have an Apple Watch, so like I was still within range.
• 40:16
  Chelsea Thomas: Okay, but um my my leaf blower died, my battery died, and I was like, okay, I'll just climb down and grab the next battery and change it and charge and all these things.
• 40:25
  Chelsea Thomas: My ladder moved and completely shifted, and I was like, oh my gosh, what do I do?
• 40:32
  Chelsea Thomas: One of those silly cartoon experiences.
• 40:35
  Chelsea Thomas: It really was, and I was like, I just I was like almost like part way down and it moved, and I like climbed back up really quick.
• 40:42
  Chelsea Thomas: Oh my gosh, I was like, okay, I could jump into my pool and hope for the best that I like don't break anything.
• 40:48
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, I was like looking over one side of my house that's like really vegetative, and I was like, do we think it's soft enough if I just like jump off?
• 40:57
  Chelsea Thomas: I'm like, how willing am I to break a bone to get one embarrassed going through your head?
• 41:02
  Chelsea Thomas: And so finally I was like, these are all really dumb because if I do break a bone, I'm the only one to care for my kids, and like that's a whole different set of issues to deal with, and I don't want to go to the ER and all of this.
• 41:14
  Chelsea Thomas: So I ended up calling my neighbor and she didn't pick up, but I saw her husband was home.
• 41:18
  Chelsea Thomas: So I was like, Well, I'm gonna call him.
• 41:19
  Chelsea Thomas: And he was like, Hi, why are you calling me?
• 41:22
  Chelsea Thomas: And I was like, I need your wife because I see that her partner's home and I need one of you to come save me from my roof.
• 41:28
  Chelsea Thomas: And she um took a picture of me as she was walking by as I'm just like perched on my roof like a little bird.
• 41:35
  Chelsea Thomas: And so in that moment, I have learned to ask for help ever since then.
• 41:40
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, if I can't do it, I'm not gonna try anymore.
• 41:43
  Chelsea Thomas: I will pick somebody to come do it, or I will ask a neighbor, like I'm not doing it.
• 41:47
  Chelsea Thomas: So I think through this whole journey, it's been self-resilience of like I'm a lot tougher than I thought I was, but also learning how to ask for help.
• 41:57
  Chelsea Thomas: And it's okay to ask for help, especially in this situation.
• 42:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I think everybody could use a little bit more of asking for help in life.
• 42:06
  Chelsea Thomas: And I just think that this really did, you know, teach me that.
• 42:10
  Chelsea Thomas: And no more roof for me.
• 42:12
  Khalila McCoy: Yes, please stay off the roof.
• 42:14
  Khalila McCoy: Now, whenever I see like ladders and stuff, I'm gonna think of you and just chuckle.
• 42:21
  Chelsea Thomas: Happy to help.
• 42:24
  Khalila McCoy: Have you accidentally like stumbled on anybody in person, like in your area that also is geo batching that you've become friends with, or are you kind of alone in your area?
• 42:34
  Chelsea Thomas: So it's funny you say that because there was a girl who her husband and my husband were part of the same squadron when they were both in Florida.
• 42:42
  Chelsea Thomas: And they both moved at the same time.
• 42:45
  Chelsea Thomas: And so when you kind of move, if you're not like really close, you uh you don't you're not quite as like, you know, you're in the vicinity, husbands are you know deployed at the same time, you have spouse uh events, you know, like you do a lot when you're in the same town, but when you move, it's really hard.
• 43:00
  Chelsea Thomas: So I hadn't really caught up with her, and I she posted something like, oh my gosh, I think I was three years in, two years into this, and she posted something about how her husband was living in a different state and she and her kids were in Florida, and I said, Excuse me?
• 43:16
  Chelsea Thomas: I was like, You are doing the same thing as me.
• 43:18
  Chelsea Thomas: And she was like, Wait, you're doing it too?
• 43:20
  Chelsea Thomas: She was like, Why are we doing this?
• 43:22
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, you know, but she it was very different reasons, but it all she was like, we had to do this for my career.
• 43:28
  Chelsea Thomas: It was the next, is the only step that we could take, and it doesn't come around often.
• 43:33
  Chelsea Thomas: So, you know, and I was like, Girl, I get it, you know, like makes sense to me.
• 43:37
  Chelsea Thomas: Um and so I haven't met anyone, but it was nice to like reconnect with her through this journey, and both still being, she's a little farther away now, but both still being in the same vicinities is nice.
• 43:51
  Khalila McCoy: So it does it, it kind of sounds like it's not really something like even when though you were in a community before, is do military.
• 43:59
  Khalila McCoy: Really talk that much about like the changes that are coming up, or does it just happen so quickly?
• 44:05
  Khalila McCoy: It's like this family's here now, but then they're gone.
• 44:10
  Chelsea Thomas: So it's a little bit of both sometimes.
• 44:13
  Chelsea Thomas: So the way that it works is like it all is dependent on your branch, your spouse, your base, your you know, like there's so many variables.
• 44:21
  Chelsea Thomas: But for us personally, when um he was stationed here in Florida, we I was close with the spouses, but not super close because where I am in Florida is like really spread out where people live.
• 44:35
  Chelsea Thomas: So like you could go, you could be part of the same base, but you could live an hour and a half away from each other, type of situation from like another spouse.
• 44:44
  Chelsea Thomas: So, but in terms of like people moving, you generally know because everybody gets there at different times.
• 44:51
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so everybody has a different leave time, but everyone's sort of talking about it.
• 44:55
  Chelsea Thomas: So, like my best friend, she's a military spouse.
• 44:58
  Chelsea Thomas: We met when she and her now husband were stationed down here in Florida.
• 45:04
  Chelsea Thomas: And her husband and my husband were a cycle apart.
• 45:09
  Chelsea Thomas: So we moved, he moved first, and they followed.
• 45:13
  Chelsea Thomas: But you know, you get to those people where you're talking about it, and even now, like in Mississippi, like we know a lot of people who are in the same cycle as my husband.
• 45:23
  Chelsea Thomas: So we're all talking about like, hey, where are you going next?
• 45:25
  Chelsea Thomas: What are you doing next?
• 45:26
  Chelsea Thomas: Are you gonna try and stay?
• 45:27
  Chelsea Thomas: Are you gonna try and move?
• 45:28
  Chelsea Thomas: Like all of those things.
• 45:30
  Chelsea Thomas: So I you know, for us it just kind of depends on who we've really connected with.
• 45:34
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but generally speaking, you you kind of know who's coming up and who's leaving and who's new and things like that within your squadron or within your you know immediate group of coworkers.
• 45:49
  Khalila McCoy: Now, with family and flight, do you guys look at that information as well, or do you kind of just wait for the families to come to you?
• 45:56
  Chelsea Thomas: So we don't necessarily look at that data.
• 46:00
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, we look at more so of like different bases.
• 46:03
  Chelsea Thomas: So there's certain bases within each branch that have a higher probability of geobatching, and those are the ones that we target.
• 46:13
  Chelsea Thomas: So we look at that data.
• 46:14
  Chelsea Thomas: So like Virginia has a really, really high population of geobatching.
• 46:20
  Khalila McCoy: Do you know the reason behind that?
• 46:22
  Chelsea Thomas: It's dependent on the job.
• 46:24
  Chelsea Thomas: Um so it really like Virginia has a very quick, from my understanding, we've never been there, but Virginia has a quick turnover.
• 46:32
  Chelsea Thomas: So it'll be like a year or two, and families are like, well, we're not gonna move for that.
• 46:35
  Chelsea Thomas: We're not gonna uproot our kids halfway through the school when you're coming back, all of these things.
• 46:40
  Chelsea Thomas: And then a lot of times you go into it thinking that and then it extends.
• 46:44
  Chelsea Thomas: And so now you're doing two to three years of this, and you're like, shoot, I should have moved.
• 46:48
  Chelsea Thomas: I should, you know.
• 46:49
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so it's just the job type in Virginia, but it's really great for your career advancement.
• 46:55
  Chelsea Thomas: So a lot of people will choose to do that.
• 46:58
  Chelsea Thomas: There's a school um also in Virginia, so that's like a year and a half long program, and it's super intense, so you barely ever see your spouse anyway.
• 47:09
  Chelsea Thomas: So a lot of the time the families will say, You go do the school by yourself.
• 47:14
  Chelsea Thomas: This way you can study, you can focus, you can do all the things, but it's a year and a half if they're on time.
• 47:20
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so there's that with Virginia.
• 47:23
  Chelsea Thomas: There's another place in Alabama that has a really high population of it, and that's because it's a school base as well, and that's a two-year program.
• 47:30
  Chelsea Thomas: So we kind of look at things like that and then really try to focus on those areas.
• 47:34
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and then obviously anyone can come to us.
• 47:37
  Chelsea Thomas: Like we have families from Idaho um who join our support group, North Carolina, Georgia, you know, so we kind of have everybody sprinkled all throughout the United States at this point, honestly.
• 47:48
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 47:49
  Khalila McCoy: Now, so if someone's listening and they're like, hey, I Geo Batch, how would they find your organization?
• 47:56
  Khalila McCoy: And then other people who are like, this is awesome, I want to support it.
• 48:00
  Khalila McCoy: Tell us all about that.
• 48:01
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 48:02
  Chelsea Thomas: So across every platform, so Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, website, everything is family in flight.
• 48:11
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, so you if you search us, we should be one of the first that pop up.
• 48:15
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, but you can also search, you know, Family in Flight Geobatching and you'll see a bunch of our posts, and it's a very quick and easy way to find us.
• 48:24
  Chelsea Thomas: If you are in this position and you want, you know, to see other interviews of people who are also going through this, or you want to hear stories, success stories, or have questions.
• 48:34
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, I always like to say that when you email us, which is at hello at familyinflight.org, you're actually talking to me directly.
• 48:41
  Chelsea Thomas: So I don't I don't source that out to any of my team or any of our volunteers.
• 48:46
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, that does come to me.
• 48:48
  Chelsea Thomas: So if you have questions or you need to talk about something and you're not comfortable online, feel free to email us and I am more than happy to chat through all of this with you.
• 48:57
  Chelsea Thomas: And then if you want to support, we would love volunteers, even if you're not military.
• 49:01
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, we need things like social media, like grant help or you know, support group help.
• 49:07
  Chelsea Thomas: So you don't have to be military to support us.
• 49:10
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, we also are always open for donations, and like I said earlier, like literally every dollar goes back into supporting these families, whether it's gift cards, whether it's travel, you know, whatever it might be, the the dollar does go back.
• 49:25
  Chelsea Thomas: Um and so you can find more information on our website, which is just familyinflight.org.
• 49:31
  Chelsea Thomas: And everything is on there.
• 49:33
  Chelsea Thomas: Um, and again, if you email me, it is going directly to me.
• 49:38
  Khalila McCoy: Nice.
• 49:39
  Khalila McCoy: I know this this might seem like a random question, but um, like, you know, you work with um not you specifically, but like food pantries and things like that, and they're like, oh, you know, Christmas is a really heavy time of year where we have a lot of need or things like that.
• 49:54
  Khalila McCoy: Do you have that within your organization where you're like, hey, if you're thinking about donating, really, you know, send your gift cards or your financial support at this time of year, or is it just like anytime, always, it's pretty consistent?
• 50:08
  Chelsea Thomas: It's pretty consistent because we have people who apply for random things.
• 50:11
  Chelsea Thomas: Like we had somebody reach out to us, it was like sometime in the summer, I can't really remember, but she her husband was graduating and she and her daughter wanted to go, but you know, the drive was gonna be too long, and hotel and car, like there was just so many factors.
• 50:26
  Chelsea Thomas: So, you know, she that was a summer one.
• 50:29
  Chelsea Thomas: We do always have an increase at Christmas time just because of the holidays.
• 50:33
  Chelsea Thomas: Everybody wants their spouse home for the holidays, but you know, we also had an application last February that was like, hey, we just want to go on a trip, or we're planning a trip so that our kids can see their dad, you know.
• 50:45
  Chelsea Thomas: So it's really pretty consistent and full year round um at that point.
• 50:52
  Khalila McCoy: Okay, great to know.
• 50:54
  Khalila McCoy: So the podcast is all about listening to other people, different unique situations and experiences.
• 51:02
  Khalila McCoy: Um, and as you share, this is not an experience that most people would have or even knew about before.
• 51:07
  Khalila McCoy: So now that we've heard your story a little bit about your organization, what would you want us to take away from what you said and how can we use this to help us rise?
• 51:17
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah, I think just honestly being understanding and like just in general in life, I feel like us as a society has really gotten away from understanding each other and truly listening.
• 51:30
  Chelsea Thomas: And I think that geobatching or not, everyone can really take that away, but especially in the geobatching community, try to understand why this person had to make this choice.
• 51:41
  Chelsea Thomas: Ask the questions, talk to them about it, listen to them, you know, really try to understand what is going on.
• 51:49
  Chelsea Thomas: And I think if we can start doing that, it will start adding more compassion and more grace into our conversations and our daily life, and we'll be able to move forward as a community, whether that's the geobatching community or the greater community, in a much better spot.
• 52:07
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Khalila McCoy: Thank you for sharing that.
• 52:09
  Khalila McCoy: I really love that.
• 52:10
  Khalila McCoy: And I really appreciate your time, especially hearing how busy you are.
• 52:13
  Khalila McCoy: I'm sure you have like a million emails to get to and things like that.
• 52:16
  Chelsea Thomas: And no, I love it.
• 52:18
  Chelsea Thomas: I love being able to share this community with people because you know, it is such a passion, so I appreciate you.
• 52:23
  Chelsea Thomas: Yes, appreciate it.
• 52:25
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, I've actually when I saw that and I like I said, um, I read about what you do, and I already went on your Instagram and looked at it.
• 52:33
  Khalila McCoy: It's it's really amazing the things that you're doing and helping.
• 52:36
  Khalila McCoy: And I know you say like you don't take the credit yourself, which is I think is awesome that you're not like, look at me.
• 52:42
  Khalila McCoy: But I mean, I hope you do realize that you are starting something wonderful and you didn't take your own, you know.
• 52:49
  Khalila McCoy: Um, you know, I meet so many different people, and sometimes we take our pain and we kind of just sit with it.
• 52:55
  Khalila McCoy: But I always find it really inspiring, and I know the listeners do too, when you take that and you say, How can I help other people who are in the same situation?
• 53:02
  Khalila McCoy: So I'm glad that you are one of those people to do that.
• 53:05
  Khalila McCoy: I know your community appreciates you, even on the bad days.
• 53:09
  Khalila McCoy: Yes, it's good to kind of sit with someone who understands.
• 53:12
  Khalila McCoy: So I admire you for what you're doing and your whole team and everybody.
• 53:16
  Khalila McCoy: And I mean, always thanks for the service for your husband, but also families give up so much, and that's easy to forget, especially if you're like here in America where we have so many privileges and things like that, we don't always see and understand what's going on around us.
• 53:32
  Khalila McCoy: I will be very honest, it might sound a little ignorant, but I don't know all the things that are happening in the military as far as like requirements and jobs and things like that.
• 53:41
  Khalila McCoy: So I am always in awe of the sacrifices people make for others.
• 53:45
  Khalila McCoy: So I want to thank you as well.
• 53:48
  Khalila McCoy: And your children too.
• 53:50
  Chelsea Thomas: All the crazy children that we have.
• 53:52
  Khalila McCoy: And the dogs.
• 53:53
  Khalila McCoy: And the dogs.
• 53:54
  Chelsea Thomas: I can't forget them.
• 53:55
  Chelsea Thomas: Well, I appreciate you having me on.
• 53:59
  Chelsea Thomas: This has been wonderful and always happy to share our side of things on the military world because I also was like you and didn't understand it until I was in it.
• 54:08
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 54:09
  Khalila McCoy: I feel like that's probably even harder for you because you're like, oh, this is what I signed up for.
• 54:13
  Chelsea Thomas: Good to know.
• 54:14
  Chelsea Thomas: Like, I guess I love you.
• 54:16
  Chelsea Thomas: Yeah.
• 54:17
  Chelsea Thomas: You know, I will say too, um, that I did just see today that somebody said it was a military video, and somebody said, I did not make the choice to be a military spouse, but I did make the choice to marry my husband, and it was his choice, and I love him.
• 54:34
  Chelsea Thomas: And I thought that that was so beautifully said.
• 54:36
  Khalila McCoy: Yes.
• 54:37
  Chelsea Thomas: We didn't make the choice to be a military family, but we did choose each other, and he was already military, so therefore, by default, sure, you can say we chose military, but we really chose the individual, and I think that's it was very beautiful.
• 54:53
  Khalila McCoy: I really enjoyed this conversation with Chelsea.
• 54:56
  Khalila McCoy: She was so fun and easy to talk to.
• 54:59
  Khalila McCoy: Doing this recording was the very first time we ever spoke, but it felt like catching up with an old friend.
• 55:06
  Khalila McCoy: If you or someone you know is geo-batching, I highly recommend reaching out to Chelsea and being part of her community.
• 55:13
  Khalila McCoy: She has built a beautiful thing, and she is absolutely the kind of person you want in your corner.
• 55:19
  Khalila McCoy: Check out the show notes if you want to reach out or to support her organization.
• 55:23
  Khalila McCoy: And guess what else is in the show notes?
• 55:27
  Khalila McCoy: A link to Chelsea's ebook.
• 55:29
  Khalila McCoy: It is out.
• 55:30
  Khalila McCoy: It's called Geobatching, The Raw Truth No One Tells You.
• 55:34
  Khalila McCoy: A survival guide for military spouses and families navigating life apart.
• 55:39
  Khalila McCoy: Again, that link will be in the show notes.
• 55:43
  Khalila McCoy: And to continue with the updates, I did just talk to Chelsea, and as of March 2026, she still does know that her husband's coming home this year, but still no word on exactly when.
• 55:57
  Khalila McCoy: So, Chelsea, we are definitely thinking of you, and we cannot wait for him to get the news and to be home with you guys again.
• 56:05
  Khalila McCoy: This week, Chelsea encouraged us to be understanding, compassionate, and to show grace.
• 56:12
  Khalila McCoy: If we're honest with ourselves, that is something we can all always be working on.
• 56:17
  Khalila McCoy: I love that Chelsea's focus is around community because sometimes being understanding, compassionate, and showing grace to those closest to us is actually harder than offering it to a stranger.
• 56:29
  Khalila McCoy: We have different expectations for those that we know, so we often forget to slow down and to just listen and to ask what that other person needs.
• 56:38
  Khalila McCoy: So I'm inviting you to be mindful of that in your own circle this week and see how you can rise.
• 56:45
  Khalila McCoy: I've loved spending this time with you, but that is all for today.
• 56:52
  Khalila McCoy: So as you move through the rest of your day and week, I hope you take a moment to listen a little louder to yourself, to the people you love, and to the things that connect us in ways we sometimes forget to notice.
• 57:05
  Khalila McCoy: I'll meet you back here next time.
• 57:07
  Khalila McCoy: See you bye.