WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Staff Sgt. Michelle Logan’s parents met while her dad was serving as an Air Force jet engine mechanic at Clark Air Base, Philippines, in 1983. Two years later, Logan was born there on the base. The 445th Aerospace Medicine Squadron medical technician grew up on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, though, until her dad’s retirement in 2000.
A fourth-generation Airman, she once received a bit of wisdom from an elderly client she met through her civilian work in durable medical equipment. This wisdom, she said, has become a guiding principle in her life.
“If you keep planting good seeds, eventually the harvest will come in,” she recalled. “Choices we all make every single day will lead us in a certain direction, so I started asking myself, ‘What am I doing?’”
Earlier this summer, Logan had the opportunity for the first time in 10 years to travel to the Philippines with her mother and father to visit with relatives. Over the course of their one-month trip, Logan was struck by the communal style of sharing meals.
“Everyone eats together, cleans up together—for lunch and dinner, but even for breakfast, too” she said, describing how her mother routinely prepared meals for about 20 people who lived nearby. “Family is a very big part of the culture there.”
The Philippines was struck by Typhoon Rai in December 2021, killing more than 400 people across the Philippine archipelago and leaving many families with damaged homes and inoperable utilities, diminishing their ability to prepare and store food.
“In America, we just make money, but then what do we do with it? There’s no guarantee any of us will be here tomorrow,” Logan said.
Building upon her mother’s example of hosting meals, Logan worked with her parents to organize a fiesta for about 250 people in the village of Perrelos, on Cebu Island.
“We opened the gates and everyone just came in,” she said. “You don’t think about it. A good deed is just a good deed.”
As her time in the Philippines came to a close, Logan sought more ways to make an impact. She recalled an elderly woman who carried a large bucket filled with octopus and other seafood on her head.
“I thought, ‘Whatever the cost is, I’m going to buy it,’” Logan remembered. “It was only about $20, and she was so excited about it. I asked my mom where this woman lived. I wanted to do more.”
So Logan and her family crammed into a small pickup truck, she said. They went to the local market and purchased rice, sardines, corned beef, powdered milk, noodles, bread and similar foods.
“Little things,” she said. “The types of things you take for granted in America.”
With the ingredients from the market, they assembled 125 bags of food, valued at about $10 (U.S. dollars) per bag and hand delivered each one to a family in the community.
“They were so grateful. They think they are winning, but they don’t realize it’s not them who’s winning —it’s me. It changes you,” Logan said.
Back at home in Ohio, Logan’s pace hasn’t slowed. In addition to her full-time durable medical equipment job and her Air Force Reserve service, Logan owns Busy Kids Gymnastics, a martial arts, gymnastics and sports education facility in Kettering, Ohio, which also sponsors youth and adult softball teams in the Philippines. Logan holds a third-degree black belt in mixed martial arts and she played Division I softball in college before earning a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Wright State University.
One day back in 2017, Logan was on her way to cut the grass at Busy Kids Gymnastics and heard from a family member that their elderly grandparents were struggling to maintain their yard.
“It was taking them four days to cut the grass,” she said, noting that the grandfather served in the Army during the Korean War. “They’d section the yard out and push the mower for 10 minutes at a time, then take a break. Her grandfather and his friend would take turns until it was done.”
For Logan, the solution was simple.
“We were going out to cut the grass at my gym, so I said, ‘Why don’t we just swing by there and do theirs real quick?’” she said. “That turned into finding other veterans in the community who could really use that type of help, mostly through word of mouth.”
Her community project, Vet Cuts LLC, was born. She routinely provides basic yard maintenance for various military veterans across the community at no cost.
“In my eyes, I’m not providing a whole lot,” she maintained. “It’s a simple task, but for a Korean War veteran who is 93, it is a big task. What would take him four days, I can do in 30 minutes.”
For Logan, a life of service is second nature.
“It just becomes something that you build into your schedule,” she said, adding that she is committed to sharing all of her resources—time, money, energy and knowledge—with others. “You can’t die with it, so what are you doing with it?”