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HARRISON TOWNSHIP — Carlo’s Pizza in Harrison Township was recognized on Nov. 25 as a supporter of the Pride of Michigan and the Great Lakes Division of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps.
According to Capt. Luke Clyburn, commanding officer of the Pride of Michigan, Congress created a youth program in 1962 to get kids interested in joining the armed forces.
“We got a ship. We got the only ship in the United States training cadets about maritime,” Clyburn said.
He said the Pride of Michigan gets children involved in Great Lakes research.
“The Great Lakes Division is a component of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps, a nonprofit youth organization for young Americans, male and female, ages 13 through 17,” the Sea Cadets website states. “Based in Mount Clemens, Michigan, we offer hands-on deck and engineering experience as crew members of the training ship Pride of Michigan.”
The ship itself has been in the community for many years. It has been the head boat in the township’s Festival of Lights, an annual water parade in the summer.
Clyburn said they teach the cadets, who are teenagers in high school, about seamanship to prepare them for branches of the military such as the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.
Carlo’s Pizza has supplied the cadets with pizza for special events. Matt Warnke, owner of Carlo’s Pizza, provides the cadets with 14-15 pizzas for one event.
“Obviously free of charge just to help Bryan (Mazey, program coordinator for the U.S. Naval Sea Cadets) and everything else with their program,” Warnke said.
The cadets have a dinner each year. Warnke said he has been supplying pizzas since about 2013 during recruitment.
“When I took it over, we were already doing it and I just continued doing it,” Warnke said.
Warnke said they will continue to supply pizzas for as long as the program continues.
Clyburn said everything is supplied locally and that they receive no federal funding for their programs.
The cadets learn how to scuba dive to conduct underwater research. Clyburn said they have a junior and a senior program. The seniors run the Pride of Michigan.
While the program is year-round, they do a lot of training in the summer. The cadets train two Saturday mornings a month during the winter and during the summer they conduct 30 to 40 days of training.
According to its website, the division is composed of teenagers living in southeastern Michigan.
For more information, go to prideofmichigan.org.
