COVID-19 Heroes: Dispatch from Central Region

Fort Hood Exchange Main Store Cashier Janice King sanitizes a shopping cart, one of many safety precautions Exchanges are taking to protect valued shoppers and associates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third month, Central Region Exchanges continue to maintain mission-essential support for Soldiers, Airmen and their families.

At the 44 Army, Air Force, National Guard and Reserve installations the region serves, Exchanges are delivering safe, sanitized and secure shopping. Face masks, disinfectant and clear acrylic barriers between cashiers and customers are all signs of the new—but necessary—normal.

“Our associates’ dedication to Warfighters and their families is unquestionable,” said Central Region Senior Vice President Marla Smith. “They understand the importance of the Exchange to military communities, and their efforts to serve them on the front lines of this pandemic have been truly astonishing.”

While most of the region’s Exchanges remain open, precautions are being taken to protect shoppers. Customer-facing interaction points, such as electronics displays, have been pulled from the sales floor, and consumable samplings and demonstrations have been cancelled. Such measures have been taken to limit the transmission of germs via commonly touched surfaces.

Restaurants and food courts continue to emphasize takeout service, allowing shoppers to enjoy fresh meals from name-brand restaurants while maintaining physical distancing. A test launch of online food ordering system iMenu360 is now underway at Fort Hood, reflecting the region’s interest in expanding online capabilities for its restaurants.

“Our other location with online ordering, the Fort Leonard Wood Slim Chickens, saw online orders go from 5% of all orders in February to 38% in May,” said Christine Harlan, chief of the region’s business office. “That’s a tremendous example of how necessary it is to have online ordering options available to our customers.”

To remind customers to follow CDC-recommended physical distancing guidelines, floor decals, each placed 6 feet apart, have been rolled out to all of the region’s Exchanges. To further encourage physical distancing, barber shops have moved waiting room chairs outside their doors, where they are kept 6 feet apart.

While many barber shops have closed as a safety precaution, some locations have made alternative solutions available: The Fort Leonard Wood Exchange, for example, deployed a mobile barber shop in early April. It closed shortly after the main barber shop reopened, but will soon resume weekend service due to reduced capacity at the main barber shop. The Exchange at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, meanwhile, has held several outdoor “pop-up” barber shops in lieu of a more permanent barber shop presence at the base.

Even the region’s concession and vendor partners have helped during the pandemic: At Fort Hood, Domino’s Pizza donated 200 pizzas to 500 Soldiers, who were quarantined as a precautionary measure upon returning from overseas. At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Haolepino Hawaiian-Filipino Island Cuisine food truck served and delivered more than 400 meals to base medical providers and first responders April 10. At Offutt Air Force Base, Coca-Cola National donated 75 cases of Coke Energy drinks to its installation support teams, including Civil Engineers, Security Forces, the fire department, and maintenance and medical groups in May.

Some Exchanges have partnered with other installation agencies to mitigate the spread of the virus. The Fort Hood Exchange, for example, teamed up with its neighboring commissary in April for a program called “One Cart, One Shopper”—a social media campaign in which shoppers are encouraged to minimize the number of family members they bring with them on shopping trips. Exchange associates also helped Fort Hood officials install the same acrylic cash register shields found in Exchanges at other customer-facing locations on post.

“It’s incumbent upon us to work with our installation partners to help keep Fort Hood’s 22,000 Soldiers and military family members safe,” said Fort Hood Exchange General Manager Daniel Wise. “We’re honored to join them in the fight against COVID-19.”