[caption id=“attachment_13523” align=“alignright” width=“481”]Prentice-Faller and Faller pose at the Douglas MacArthur Center USO. Photo courtesy Joy Prentice-Faller Joy Prentice-Faller and Maj. Joe Faller pose at the Douglas MacArthur Center USO. Photo courtesy Joy Prentice-Faller[/caption] Joy Prentice-Faller wasn’t looking for love when she started volunteering at the USO in 2011. Instead, it found her.

It started one Saturday morning in 2012 at the USO of Metropolitan New York’s Douglas MacArthur Center inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, when Prentice-Faller showed up early to teach Marine Reserve Maj. Joe Faller how to open the center.

Unbeknownst to Prentice-Faller and Pat Walsh – the USO of Metropolitan New York’s manager of programs and services who coordinated the shift – Faller had already been trained.

“We realized that it wasn’t his first time [opening the center] and that we had just kind of gotten put on the schedule together,” Prentice-Faller said. “But that started more of the first conversation [between us].”

After that shift, the duo started to see each other outside of the USO and eventually began dating.

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“I think volunteering together gave us something in common, or just kinda showed us that we had similar values because we could kinda work together as a team, or work together and be on the same page,” Faller said. No one at the center knew about their relationship until about six months later, when the couple was walking side-by-side in New York City's Veterans Day parade. “[Walsh] kind of figured it out when [she saw that] we were holding hands walking up Fifth Avenue with the USO float,” Prentice-Faller said.

[caption id=“attachment_13524” align=“alignleft” width=“481”]Pat Walsh gives a toast at Prentice-Faller and Faller's wedding. Photo courtesy Joy Prentice-Faller USO of Metropolitan New York’s Pat Walsh gives a toast at Prentice-Faller wedding. Photo courtesy Joy Prentice-Faller[/caption]

The two got engaged in 2013 and were married last year. They even asked Walsh to give a toast at the reception and talk about how they met.

“So when nobody was really telling that story [of how they met at the USO], I thought, I have to tell it,’” Walsh said.
“When you put people on the same shift, you don’t know that [they’re] going to get married, of course.“
The couple still volunteers at the USO’s Port Authority location.