The Charles H. Coolidge Medal of Honor Heritage Center will be one of our city's greatest assets.
As a citizen living in the city limits that uses Coolidge Park and as a past president of the Chattanooga Council of PTAs and as a past board member of the Bethlehem Center in Alton Park, I am excited about such an architecturally beautiful accessible educational asset for all children of Hamilton County.
The interactive activities and character education components give our children real heroes and an opportunity to learn what valor means. Such a wonderful teaching facility accessible by the children of poorer neighborhoods around the central city will be used for making a partnership with Hamilton County schools to enhance opportunities for education for all children.
I want this facility for my grandchildren and great grandchildren to know freedom is not free. It's the men and women who step up to defend it, sacrifice for it, and treasure it that our children should know about.
This is the birthplace of the medal awarded for highest valor and where the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor took place. Honoring our veterans and American sacrifice was what the park land was set aside for. It's a promise the city would do well to keep.
Bobbie Allison-Standefer
Chattanooga