Maribel Sykes, 17, is the 2025 Operation Home Front MIlitary Child of the Year for the Army. Her father, Lt. Col. Nick Sikes, is a human resources officer at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
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WASHINGTON — In the fall of 2020, Maribel Sikes and her mom walked into a commissary on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. As they pushed their cart through the aisles, they gasped.
Maribel saw bare shelves. Produce displays sat half full. The cold food aisle had scarcely stocked freezers. The then-12-year-old helped her mom carefully plan and select items for her younger siblings who have food allergies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, supplies of groceries had diminished food stock on Hawaii. For a family with special dietary requirements, that posed a daunting challenge.
They couldn’t find essentials for their family, including allergy-safe proteins like chicken or gluten-free foods.
“The stores would often be empty for a while, or at least reduced just because of the supply chain issues,” said Sikes, the 2025 Operation Homefront Army Military Child of the Year. “And I wanted to know why that was.”
Research on the topic spurred Sikes into learning more about how products get from the manufacturing plant to the consumer.
She said she learned that suppliers transport groceries and other essential items by boat to Oahu. The pandemic restrictions impacted boats. Sometimes they broke down or could not make the trip at all.
Driven by a desire to help those in need, Maribel, daughter of Audrey and Lt. Col. Nick Sikes, decided to study supply chain management in college while still in the seventh grade. Nick serves as a human resource manager at U.S. Army Human Resources Command.
The pandemic forced the closure of most facilities in the area, limiting residents’ interaction in their neighborhood cul-de-sac. Maribel knew the neighboring children, a few with disabilities and special needs, were looking for more activities during the pandemic. So, she created props and wrote a play that all the kids performed, with the rest of the neighborhood as an audience.
“It was just this amazing experience as far as making sure everyone was included and felt like they could help serve in the play,” said Audrey. “And I think that that really started something inside of her.”
Maribel Sikes hosts a story time for children at Camp Zama, Japan. Sikes, the daughter of Lt. Col. Nick Sikes, is the 2025 Operation Homefront Military Child of the Year.
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The drive to help others in need extended beyond the neighborhood, as Maribel eventually became a volunteer in Hawaii and their previous station, Camp Zama, Japan. In the past year alone, Sikes has accumulated more than 1,500 hours volunteering at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Camp Zama earning her the title as the Army’s top military child. Maribel and the Sikes family travelled to Washington, D.C., to receive the award in a ceremony April 10.
She became the lone home schooler to take part in the Youth Leadership Hardin County Program in Kentucky, a civic leadership program for local high school leaders.
At her local church, Maribel has mentored young girls, sang and volunteered. During her work with the Fort Knox Warrior Warehouse, she processes donated clothing and bedding for economically challenged families.
Maribel’s new goal: earn the Lifetime-level of the prestigious President’s Volunteer Service award, given to American citizens for exemplary volunteer work over 4,000 hours in their communities.
Maribel’s love for serving others runs in her family. She said her maternal grandparents are farm-raised kids with a sun-up to sun-down strong work ethic. They trained Audrey, to be the same way, which Audrey passed to her daughter. Nick’s parents served as missionaries in West Africa and instilled in him the sense of service before self. Maribel and her four siblings also share the love of serving others.
The high school junior remains close with her dad, despite multiple deployments and frequent work trips. She shares a strong bond with her mother, who has homeschooled Maribel and her siblings all their lives.
Nick saw his daughter once between months three and 18 of Maribel’s life. While Nick trained Iraqi police forces as an Army intelligence officer, his daughter took her first steps and said her first words. Nick said he worried that he’d return to his daughter as a stranger.
“I’d come back after deployment, and she did not remember seeing or hearing me,” he said.
After his first deployment to Iraq, Nick selected books and made recordings of himself reading bedtime stories so Maribel could listen to his voice. He also recorded himself singing nighttime songs to help her sleep. Nick said he would try to salvage as much time as he could between redeployment trainings and his departure date.
“It was just very different circumstances in the midst of two wars,” Nick said.
As a child, Maribel would draw pictures of people animals and mail them to her father. When she was older, she sent him care packages or write letters and emails. When Nick was with Maribel, they would play games, basketball or go hiking. Nick also helped lead Maribel’s youth groups in several different locations.
Maribel Sikes, her siblings and her parents brought refreshments for Soldiers working at the Camp Zama motor pool. Sikes was named the 2025 Operation Homefront Military Child of the Year for the Army. Sikes also received the Camp Zama Teen Volunteer of the Year award in 2024.
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An old soul
Like other military children, Maribel has weathered the storm of a dozen moves during her lifetime. Her mom calls Maribel an “old soul” who has a knack for adaptability.
Admittedly shy, Maribel always had a talent for communication, surprising her mom by speaking in complete sentences as a toddler.
“I feel like she practically came out of the womb saying full sentences,” Audrey said.
Maribel also showed organizational skills early.
Audrey said Maribel placed her toys into separate containers. Every night as a 6-year-old, she would organize her books on a shelf next to her bed.
Then, while visiting Camp Zama’s library, Maribel asked the librarian if she could start a story time for preschoolers and homeschooled children. The story time soon turned into a multitude of programs, including summer reading programs, teenage book club and adult craft classes.
“She’s able to look at a broad problem and trailblaze a solution,” Nick said.
At Zama, Maribel and her family suffered a scare in 2022. The spouse group connected with Nick’s battalion hosted a trivia night for troops at the installation. Audrey and Maribel’s twin siblings went to the venue to help set chairs and tables while Maribel stayed home to babysit her other two siblings.
An hour later, her mom returned to the house, with a panicked expression across her face. While preparing decorations for the party, Audrey had started to feel dizzy. She suffered an allergic reaction to materials used for the party.
“It [felt] like an overall sense that something was very, very wrong,” Audrey said.
Maribel, knowing that the emergency medical technicians only spoke Japanese, hurried to her Japanese neighbor who spoke English to call for an ambulance. Emergency care technicians whisked Audrey to the emergency room.
The family later learned that Audrey suffered an anaphylaxis, or life-threatening allergic reaction. Over the next few hours, Maribel remained home to care for her younger siblings, cooking dinner for them and tucking them in their beds.
Maribel Sikes, the 2025 Operation Homefront Army Military Child of the Year poses for a photo with recipients from other service branches in Washington D.C. on April 10, 2025.
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Audrey has occasional allergic reactions. And Audrey said Maribel shoulders responsibilities for her younger siblings every time.
Maribel said she keeps those experiences in mind each time she helps someone in need.
Maribel possesses an innate sense of caring for others forged in the Sikes household. There, Maribel’s parents raised their children to become part of a team, where each child has a role in setting the table or preparing food themselves.
As Maribel grew up, she said she saw her father, take time to listen to his Soldiers, keeping an open-door policy. Following her father’s example of leadership, Maribel later formed a youth Red Cross Club at Zama for local youth to serve their community as a group. Club members who Maribel mentored elected her as president.
Her caring efforts didn’t stop with youth.
Many of the Soldiers stationed at Camp Zama, thousands of miles from home, couldn’t afford plane tickets back to the States. So many remained in Japan for the holidays. Maribel decided she wanted to bring a piece of home to the Soldiers.
So, she coordinated a holiday party for the troops by hosting a game and movie night for single Soldiers while gathering, packaging and sending packages of food to deployed troops.
From quiet kid to community leader
Over time, Maribel said she taught herself to overcome her own fears, including her fear of public speaking. Admittedly an introvert, Maribel would hesitate to interact with her peers. However, by her teen years, Maribel’s volunteer and mentorship work has thrust her into public speaking, forcing her to face her fears.
She said she called herself quiet and shy as a kid and as a teen, still occasionally preferring to curl up on the couch and read books instead of socializing. But she always had a steady group of friends. Despite her shyness, she could relate to others and encourage others due to her unique life experiences.
As she volunteered more of her time in the community, she realized she had to overcome the fears in her life.
“As an introvert, I struggled with fear of public speaking or looking foolish in public,” she said. “It became more evident to me as I started stepping up and serving in my community that I realized that I can’t allow fear to stop me from serving. I want to help make a difference in people’s lives and fear is not allowed to hold me back from being the person I want to be … a person who serves others.”
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