When the community you want doesn’t exist, someone has to go first.

Many of us believe community is something we find. We imagine that somewhere out there is the perfect neighborhood, the perfect group, or the perfect circle of people who will instantly feel like home. We move to a new place hoping connection will naturally appear.

But what happens when it doesn’t?

In this episode of Find Your Freaks, Tonya Kubo sits down with Army spouse, leadership coach, and author Stacey Morgan to explore what it really means to build community instead of waiting for it. After 25 years of military life—raising four children while moving around the world—Stacey has faced a challenge many people never experience: rebuilding connection over and over again.

Military life requires constant resets. Families relocate every few years, friendships are interrupted by deployments, and support networks disappear overnight when orders change. The result is that many spouses arrive at new duty stations feeling isolated, even though they are surrounded by people living similar lives.

As Stacey explains in the conversation, one of the biggest lessons she learned over time is that waiting for someone else to solve loneliness doesn’t work. “There’s no rescuer coming for you,” she says, describing the moment she realized that if she wanted community, she had to help create it. 

That realization may sound harsh at first, but Stacey describes it as freeing. When you stop waiting for someone else to invite you into belonging, you gain the power to start building it yourself.

Episode Highlights

• [02:10] Why Stacey’s “freaks” are military spouses and the unique bond they share
• [08:30] How traditional military spouse support systems quietly fell apart
• [15:00] Why community connection impacts military family retention
• [26:00] The hidden gaps created when volunteer support systems disappeared
• [33:00] Stacey’s new model for community: “No dues, no drama.”
• [41:30] How small interest groups spark real connection
• [53:00] The story behind Stacey’s book The Astronaut’s Wife
• [1:03:00] The life lesson that changed everything: no one is coming to rescue you
• [1:07:20] Where to start if you want to build community in your own life

The Disappearance of Military Spouse Communities

For decades, military spouse networks provided a built-in support system for families navigating military life. These communities helped new arrivals meet neighbors, share resources, and find guidance from spouses who had already navigated deployments and relocations.

While informal, these networks were incredibly effective. Experienced spouses mentored newer ones, volunteer groups organized events and support systems, and families had clear pathways into connection.

Over time, however, cultural shifts changed the foundation of those networks. More spouses began working full-time careers. Families increasingly lived off base rather than in tightly connected military housing communities. Volunteer expectations changed, and the mentorship structures that once held these groups together gradually faded.

Many of the systems that supported military families were built almost entirely on volunteer labor from spouses themselves. When those volunteers disappeared, the infrastructure collapsed.

Today, many military families arrive at new duty stations to find that the community structures they expected simply don’t exist.

Why Community Matters More Than We Realize

Isolation isn’t just a personal challenge for military families—it can become a systemic one.

When spouses feel disconnected from their communities, it affects the entire family’s experience of military life. Surveys consistently show that spouse satisfaction and connectedness influence whether service members choose to remain in the military.

But the deeper truth goes beyond policy or retention statistics. Humans need belonging. We are wired for connection, and when that connection disappears, everyday challenges become heavier.

Stacey has seen both sides of this reality. She has experienced the loneliness of arriving somewhere new without support, and she has also experienced the powerful sense of belonging that forms when communities intentionally create space for each other.

“If you want community, sometimes you have to go first.” — Stacey Morgan Share on X

The difference between isolation and belonging often comes down to whether someone is willing to initiate connection.

A Radically Simple Model for Building Community

When Stacey arrived at her current duty station, she quickly realized that the traditional spouse organization had effectively disappeared. The old model—with its leadership boards, membership dues, fundraising requirements, and volunteer obligations—was no longer sustainable.

Instead of trying to revive a system that was already collapsing, she and two other spouses created something radically simpler.

Their approach focuses on three basic principles: simplicity, accessibility, and participation.

Three people manage the basic infrastructure: an email list and a Facebook group. There are no membership dues, no fundraising expectations, and no complicated leadership structures. Their guiding principle is simple and memorable: no dues and no drama.

From there, the community grows through interest-based groups. Anyone who wants to organize an activity can do so. A spouse who enjoys pickleball can start a pickleball group. Someone else might organize a crafting meetup, a walking club, or a book discussion.

Instead of a small leadership team planning everything, the community itself generates the activity.

This shift transforms community from something people consume into something they actively create.

Why Bottom-Up Community Works

The beauty of Stacey’s model is that it removes many of the barriers that prevent people from participating in traditional organizations.

First, it eliminates burnout. In many volunteer groups, the same few people end up carrying most of the responsibility. Over time, those leaders become exhausted, and the organization struggles to survive when they leave.

Second, interest-based groups naturally attract the right people. When individuals gather around activities they already enjoy, conversations start more easily and relationships form more organically.

Finally, the structure is resilient. When one organizer moves away—as military families inevitably do—the system doesn’t collapse. Someone else can simply create the next activity.

“Enough complaining about what doesn’t exist. If you want it, be willing to host it.” — Stacey Morgan Share on X

Community becomes stronger when members feel ownership over it.

The Courage to Introduce Yourself

Despite the elegance of this model, it requires something that many of us struggle with: the courage to go first.

It is far easier to wait for someone else to introduce themselves, organize the gathering, or create the invitation. But waiting rarely produces the connection we hope for.

When Tonya asked Stacey where people should start if they want stronger community in their own lives, her answer was refreshingly simple.

Start by getting out of your house.

That might mean walking through your neighborhood without headphones so you can greet people. It might mean attending a local event or joining an activity connected to your interests. It might be as simple as introducing yourself to someone you see regularly but have never spoken to.

“You can’t wait for someone to build community for you. The people who want it have to create it.” — Stacey Morgan Share on X

The action itself isn’t complicated. What makes it difficult is the vulnerability of initiating connection.

Yet that vulnerability is exactly what makes community possible.

Every friendship begins with a conversation. Every gathering begins with an invitation. Every community begins with someone willing to start.

Freak Flags Fly

Each episode ends with five quick questions. Here’s how Stacey flies her flag:

• You’re my kind of freak if… you’re a military spouse — who can laugh even when life gets complicated.
• Something you love that friends don’t get: leadership books.
• Community you’d infiltrate: the full-commitment Renaissance fair community — the people who grow the beards, sew the costumes, and fully live the experience.
• Practice that keeps you connected: the Marco Polo app for video messages with friends, especially when schedules make real-time conversations hard.
• Someone doing freakishly good work who deserves a bigger stage: Sharon McMahon, for helping people understand civics with clarity and humanity.

Meet Our Guest

Stacey Morgan is an Army spouse of 25 years, mom of four, speaker, and author of The Astronaut’s Wife: How Launching My Husband into Outer Space Changed the Way I Live on Earth. Stacey serves on staff with The MomCo as an executive leadership coach, membership manager, and lead for military and online groups. She and her family are currently stationed overseas on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and will move this summer to White Sands Missile Test Range in New Mexico.

Meet Your Host

Tonya Kubo is a community strategist, writer, and rebel with a cause: helping people find the place where they truly belong. She’s spent nearly two decades building online spaces that feel more like chosen family than comment sections, and she’s not afraid to call out the fluff in favor of real connection. As the founder of Find Your Freaks, Tonya brings together unconventional thinkers, builders, and bridge-makers who believe that “normal” was never the point. When she’s not hosting the show, she’s raising two daughters, leading client communities, and making meaning out of the mess.

Episode Transcript

Get the full transcript from Episode 20.

Resources & Mentions

• The Astronaut’s Wife: How Launching My Husband into Outer Space Changed the Way I Live on Earth by Stacey Morgan
• Stacey Morgan (official website)
• The MomCo
• Blue Star Families
• Military Spouse Advocacy Network
• Marco Polo App
• Sharon McMahon

Support the Show

If Find Your Freaks matters to you, help us keep it ad-free by buying us a coffee (or two!). Every dollar goes to production so more weirdos can find their people. You can purchase Find Your Freaks merchandise online through Abilities and Attitudes.

Let’s Stay Freaky

• Facebook Group
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• Podcast Hub

What’s Next

The strongest communities aren’t built around one person. In the next episode, Tonya explores why the best communities are designed to survive their founders, how Stacey’s model flips leadership on its head, and what happens when belonging becomes part of the structure instead of the job description.