Who Does This Food Truck Want to Help Out? U.S. Vets

As it turns out, a little BBQ can cure more than just an empty stomach.
That’s exactly what wounded veteran Shane Farlin found out when trying to get back on his feet after leaving the Army. And now, he’s hoping to do the same for other soldiers with a food truck named Hogzilla.
Farlin had always wanted to be a soldier. Enlisting in the Army at the age of 17, he was later deployed to Iraq. In 2004, when returning from a supply mission in Fallujah, a bomb exploded in his face. A helicopter airlifted Farlin to treatment, saving his life, but the accident cost him one of his eyes. The injury also resulted in PTSD, and Farlin was discharged from the Army, leaving him with the need to find a new career.
He floundered for a while, spending four years interviewing for various jobs. To say that he was dispirited was an understatement — he was so low that once, he called the military suicide line.
Finally, Sonny Singh, the owner of a Michigan barbecue restaurant, Hogzilla, offered Farlin a job. The position made all the difference — lifting Farlin’s spirits and making him feel like a useful person again.
Now Farlin wants to provide jobs to other vets struggling to find work by opening up a food truck called Hogzilla Squeals on Wheels, with the hope of eventually expanding to an entire fleet of veteran-staffed food trucks (serving various types of cuisine). “I know vets make good employees,” Farlin told Kathy Jennings of Southwest Michigan’s Second Wave.
While food trucks are swarming cities from coast to coast, the trend hasn’t caught on yet in southwest Michigan’s Calhoun County, where Farlin’s vehicle would be the first full-service food truck in operation. Farlin is currently trying to raise the $50,000 he needs to get Hogzilla on the road through a Kickstarter page. So far he’s raised about $4,500.
Until Farlin’s food truck dreams are realized, he’ll continue to work in a vending trailer owned by the restaurant, forging agreements with private property owners to set up his trailer, as Battle Creek, Michigan does not yet allow food trucks on public property.
With any luck, Farlin will soon be serving up deep-fried macaroni and barbecue sandwiches and employing his fellow veterans.
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Minnesota Looks to a Historic Structure to Help End Veteran Homelessness

First, the building served as a fort. Its second life? A Civil War induction station. Next, it was the Military Intelligence Service Language School during World War II, where soldiers learned Japanese. For its fourth incarnation, the fort was decommissioned and turned over to the Minnesota Historical Society and became a military museum. Now, the historic structure is being called to service once again — this time as housing for homeless veterans.
Fort Snelling, which sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, was built in the 1820s. To ready the structure for its new purpose, construction workers broke ground on May 29 to begin converting five of its historic buildings into 58 affordable housing units for homeless military veterans and their families — the CommonBond Veteran’s Housing.
Studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom units are available. The complex will include medical and psychological health offices, job training services, and academic support. Residents will work with counselors to help get their lives back on track.
Collaboration between public and private groups, including United Health Group, the Home Depot Foundation, Neighborhood Works America, and many others raised the $17.2 million required for the project, which should be completed by spring 2015.
“I’m very proud of the progress that we have made. After years of hard work, Minnesota now has the lowest homeless rate for veterans in the country,” Senator Al Franken told Reg Chapman of CBS Minnesota. Minnesota has 320 homeless veterans, and state leaders have set a goal to end homelessness among veterans in the state by 2015.
Formerly homeless Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Jerry Readmond, who now serves as an advocate for homeless veterans, told Chapman, “We’re all trained in the military how to survive but when we come home we have to start surviving all over again.”
This new use of the old fort should make that quest for survival easier.
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While Her Owner Serves Overseas, This Dog Serves Her Country at Home

To say that the Cook family has a deep responsibility for national service is an understatement.
Alan Cook is an Air Force veteran. His daughter Danielle Cook is currently a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force. Danielle’s mother and grandfather served too. And the line of service in this family doesn’t stop there — now that Danielle is deployed overseas in Afghanistan, her dog Harper helps veterans suffering PTSD through a program called Circle of Change.
Harper lives with Danielle’s dad and visits the Dog Den, a doggy daycare center in Madison while Sergeant Cook is gone. Workers at the Dog Den thought Harper would be a good candidate for the Circle of Change program. “She is very shy and fearful, but at the same time she is gentle. She’s the perfect dog for our veterans program,” Dog Den employee Deborah Crawley told Gordon Severson of WAOW.
In Circle of Change classes, veterans suffering from PTSD teach dogs who have behavioral problems how to relax and follow commands. This training helps the dogs overcome their fears. Another beneficial outcome? The veterans find their PTSD symptoms are often eased by working with the animals, too.
Desert Storm veteran Mike Weber, a participant in the first six-week Circle of Change course, said working with the dogs helped him feel better. “My way of handling my problem was just to avoid everything. This has really helped me come back out and kind of get me back on track,” Weber told Severson. “It’s such a great program and it really has helped me bond with not only the animals, but other vets and volunteers.”
“We’re a military family all the way down to the dog now,” Alan Cook told Severson. “My daughter is just so proud of Harper and thinks it’s a great thing. It gives her something to do while my daughter is away overseas.”
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What’s That Strange Crop Growing in America’s Fields?

You’re familiar with corn and wheat and cotton. And maybe even soybeans. But you’re probably never heard of miscanthus.
This funny-sounding crop is already providing renewable energy in Europe, and now, it’s beginning to catch on with more farmers here in the United States. Currently, it’s sprouting in fields in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois, among others — although still on a small-scale basis.
A relative of sugar cane, miscanthus yields 15 tons of biomass fiber per acre. It’s a perennial, so once planted, it returns every year for up to two decades. A relatively small amount of chemicals are required to keep this crop healthy, and once it’s established, many farmers use no pesticides at all. For all these reasons, miscanthus promises to outperform corn as a clean and efficient energy crop.
“Miscanthus is such a new crop that we are the first 16 acres to be planted in Iowa,” Steve Schomberg, the farmer with Iowa’s biggest miscanthus crop, told Rick Frederickson of Iowa Public Radio. “It gets gawkers, yes. People stop along the road and talk about it, (and ask) ‘What are you growing there?'”
Schomberg sends his miscanthus harvest to the University of Iowa, where it is mixed with coal and converted into steam and electricity at the University’s power plant. Iowa is currently recruiting more farmers to grow the crop. The state hopes to have 2,500 acres of it by 2016.
In Illinois, farmer Eric Rund is promoting miscanthus as a cheaper heating fuel alternative to liquid propane.
Iowa State University agronomist Emily Heaton is studying ways to mix miscanthus with existing fossil fuel sources so that less non-renewable energy is consumed. “When I look at a crop like this, I see a chance to make fossil fuels cleaner,” Heaton told Frederickson. “Because what we’re talking about is blending this clean grassy biomass with coal, so it just cleans up coal a little bit.”
And when you’re talking about an energy source as dirty as coal, even a little bit cleaner is a whole lot better.
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From Seed to Harvest, These Green Thumbs Nourish Chicago School Gardens

Gardens are a good thing. Period. But in an inner-city school, they’re wonderful. They provide hands-on lessons on how plants grow and encourage kids to eat nutritiously. Plus, the green space beautifies the school.
But starting a school garden and maintaining it turns out to be more complicated than some might think. That’s because everyone is excited to plant one initially, but if teachers are solely responsible for their upkeep, they can become too busy with classroom duties and might not be around over the summer when the plants need tending.
Fortunately, that’s where the nonprofit Gardeneers comes in. It offers a program to plant gardens at Chicago schools and maintain them while also providing lesson plans and a weekly visiting teacher.
Teach for America alumni May Tsupros and Adam Zmick, who founded the Gardeneers, explain on a crowd fundraising website that their model for becoming rotating garden specialists is based on the idea of a visiting speech pathologist, who rotates to a different school each day of the week. The Gardeneers rotate among schools, teaching lessons during school related to the curriculum in such subjects as chemistry, biology, and nutrition, and then enlist the kids’ help to tend the plants in the after school garden clubs.
During the summer, the nonprofit organizes neighborhood volunteers to help keep the plants thriving. The Gardeneers make sure the garden’s produce reaches the children’s lunch plates, coordinating with cafeteria staff to ensure everybody gets to taste the bounty.
According to Cortney Ahem of Food Tank, the Gardeneers offer their services throughout the growing season to schools for a maximum of $10,000, compared to the $35,000 some companies charge for garden installations alone.
Three Chicago schools have jumped at the chance to work with the Gardeneers this growing season, and Zmick and Tsupros hope to expand that to 50 schools during the next five years. They plan to focus on schools where 90 percent or more of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Zmick told Ahem, “School gardens are incredibly important from an educational perspective. There’s so much data about how these gardens can improve academic outcomes, reduce discipline problems, develop job skills, and strengthen the local community.”
Tsupros thinks gardens can be the key to national renewal. “I believe with all my heart that food, nutrition, and community are the foundations on which we need to build and focus our attention regarding education in Chicago and all the United States. One small seed can grow a bountiful harvest, and I hope that Gardeneers can be that seed.”
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A Safe Childcare Option for Low-Income Parents Working the Night Shift

It’s hard enough to find high-quality, affordable childcare. But when you work the night shift, as many low-income mothers and fathers do, it can be an insurmountable challenge.
Fortunately, for parents living in Chillicothe, Ohio, there’s an answer: An overnight childcare center.
The Carver Community Center is partnering with Goodwill Industries to expand its daycare services to offer childcare around the clock. Justine Smith, the director of the center, told Dominic Binkley of The Colombus Dispatch, “There are a lot of second- and third-shift jobs available in Columbus. (Parents) are more than happy to drive to Columbus for work, but when it comes to child care, they’re kind of stuck.”
As middle-class parents can attest, the cost of childcare isn’t cheap. (A recent report showed that childcare has become more expensive than college tuition in 31 states.) However, the Carver Community Center manages to keep prices low — most parents pay only $55 to $130 a week — through donations, grants, and support from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Some families that are especially needy only contribute a co-pay of a few dollars.
Still, even if the childcare is affordable, it has to be offered during the hours that parents can actually use it. The Carver Community Center’s rare nighttime hours will allow many parents keep their jobs and not depend on inconsistent or unsafe overnight care for their kids.
Currently there’s a waiting list for night care at the center. “I can honestly say I hate to turn a child away,” Smith told Binkley. “If somebody gave me $1 million, then I would have every kid in the world in this place, but I’ve got to look at the funding.”
For the families that the center is able to help, however, the security that comes with knowing their children are well cared for while they work is priceless.
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Volunteering Enables Low-Income Ohioans to Get Their Own Two Wheels

When it comes to low-cost transportation and exercise, nothing compares to a bike. But you’re more likely to see people commuting to work and school in high-income communities than in low-income ones.
Toledo Bikes! is looking to change that dynamic by spreading the benefits of cycling to people of all income levels.
The Ohio nonprofit recovers used bicycles and refurbishes them while also teaching low-income kids and adults how to make repairs. People can volunteer in the repair shop, and once they fulfill a certain number of hours, they are given a bicycle of their own. Last year, the center racked up 848 volunteer hours, and 44 people earned their own wheels.
Toledo Bikes! also donates bicycles to community organizations and sells them at affordable prices, using the profits to keep its programs running.
This year, Toledo’s Hawkins Elementary School held a bike-themed essay competition. The 12 kids who wrote the best compositions explaining why they’d like a bicycle got to ride one home, supplied by Toledo Bikes! Even those who didn’t win one were able to enroll in one of the center’s build-a-bike or bike maintenance classes.
Erik Thomas of Toledo Bikes! told Eric Wildstein of WNWO that kids who start out taking classes are apt to return to the bike shop. “A lot of them we see coming back over the years as they’ve grown up,” he said. “They’ve gotten their first job, they need transportation, they’ll come in here and earn some hours.”

Veterans Receive Donations From an Unlikely Source: A 12-Year-Old Girl

Whereas most teenagers want clothing or a new smartphone for their birthday, Katy Sell wanted something, well, let’s say, quite different, for her 12th birthday. She wanted to help U.S. veterans.
After Katy’s mother challenged her to do something kind for others on her birthday, Katy, who lives in Deubrook, South Dakota, came up with a bigger idea than her mom ever imagined: She decided to donate all of her presents to the California-based Big Paws Canine Academy and Foundation, a nonprofit that trains service animals for veterans and has a Midwest branch in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
According to the Big Paws website, Katy and her mother Julie Sell, a Navy veteran, were homeless seven years ago. It was that tough experience that gave them extra motivation to help others.
When people heard about Katy’s generosity, her school friends and many others chipped in additional donations to help the nonprofit. At Katy’s birthday party, several veterans brought their service animals to meet the generous teen and her friends. Ricky Crudden told Denise DePaolo of KSFY, “I lost the use of my legs due to a stroke because of COPD.” Big Paws matched him with his service dog Tracer. Crudden said, “He saved my life. He woke me up in the middle of the night.”
During the party, one veteran received the dog he’d been waiting for — giving Katy the experience of seeing the first moments of a new relationship. “It gives me a good, tingly feeling inside because I know I’m helping a lot of people,” Sell told DePaolo.
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A New Program Transitions Soldiers into Successful Tradesmen

You always want the very best for your friends. That’s especially true if your pal has sacrificed by serving as a member of the United States military.
When seeing two of his Marine friends (“both extraordinary people with a lot of talent”) struggle after returning from war, Keith Mercurio of Little Canada, Minnesota had an idea. “When they came back from service, I was able to watch how they reintegrated into society—one of my friends didn’t have much to do, he was just home. These guys are having to come home where there are no jobs for them. He was having a tough time…While I am seeing this happen to my friends, I am also listening to how our businesses are having trouble finding good people. And both of these situations just didn’t make any sense to me,” Mercurio told Candace Roulo of Contractor Magazine.
Mercurio realized what his veteran friends were missing: Professional training that would qualify them for in-demand fix-it jobs.
So he met with Jack Tester, the CEO of Nexstar (a national company that organizes a network of contractors), who just happens to be his employer. (Mercurio is a sales trainer for Nexstar.) From there, the program Troops to Trades was born.
Nexstar usually only trains people who work for its own companies, but Mercurio asked his boss to open up their training to all veterans — regardless of their business affiliation. Tester agreed.
One of the beneficiaries of the program is Army veteran Bryan Daleiden, who was working in the office of Uptown Heating and Cooling in Minneapolis. Daleiden wanted to be fixing heating and cooling systems instead of completing paperwork, but he lacked the training. He applied for a scholarship from the Troops to Trades program, and they paid his expenses for a two-week training course.
“Anytime there is an opportunity to achieve higher learning in something I’m passionate about, I seize it,” Daleiden said.
Troops to Trades is run by The Nexstar Legacy Foundation, which is partnering with the American Legion to get the word out about the scholarships, training, and job placement that they offer in plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical services. The company has set up a business network whose members agree to talk to veterans about their work and offer them jobs.
Mercurio said he knew his idea would work, because people like his Marine Corps veteran friends “…did get all the skills from training in the military that anyone would ever hope for in a human being — they are reliable, respectful, disciplined, hardworking, noble and honest.”
Only now, they can fix your clogged kitchen sink, too.
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Heroes of the Gridiron Lend a Hand to a Battlefield Hero

Justin Adamson, center for the University of Notre dame’s famed Fighting Irish football team, doesn’t just work hard on the field. Like many other college students whose finances are tight, he holds an outside job — working at Whole Foods Market, demonstrating salad dressings.
While dolling out tasty dressings to shoppers one day at a store in Ohio, Howard Goldberg stopped by Adamson’s table. Goldberg works for the nonprofit Purple Heart Homes, which purchases and renovates affordable homes for veterans.
Goldberg must also be a smooth talker, because by the end of their salad dressing exchange, Adamson had agreed to help renovate a home for an injured veteran. Not only that, but he said he’d bring along some of his teammates to provide additional manpower. Adamson told Andrew Cass of the News-Herald that he and Goldberg “talk[ed] for about an hour just going on about what this project means to a lot of people and what it can do in the community.”
Adamson took the idea to his coaches, who in turn, presented it to the team. Thirty football players jumped at the chance to volunteer, but only 12 players were able to be transported to the project. On April 25, the dozen helped demolish a kitchen and renovate the basement of the Ohio home of Leo Robinson, a wounded Marine Corps vet. (The house had been purchased by Purple Heart Homes.)
Once the renovation is complete, Robinson will pay 50 percent of the mortgage’s value, as part of the nonprofit’s mission to give vets a “hand up, not a hand out.”
Sophomore wide receiver Dajuhn Graham said, “I love doing things like this. My dad, that’s what he does for a living, he builds houses, and I actually do things like this so it’s nothing new to me.”
Homeowner Robinson told Cass that seeing all the football players pitch in to fix up his house “feels great. When we get back after going through everything we go through, it’s like you think people don’t care anymore, that society’s dead…But there are still people who care and want to help the community out.”
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