Where would we be without generous people pitching in to pick up what others have torn down? The actions of a group of volunteers in Florida show that for many veterans, helping out is a lifelong commitment.
The Little St. Mary’s River Park in Baker County, Florida is a place for families to get outside, relax and enjoy nature. But last spring, the park’s docks were vandalized. The criminals, who’ve never been caught, ripped the handrails from all the docks, crushed picnic tables and tossed them in the water and destroyed a bridge.
Larry Porterfield, a 70-year-old veteran who served in the Army as a combat engineer, was upset by the damage. “They even came in and tore the handicap ramps out,” he tells Clifford Davis of The Florida Times-Union. “Now, why would they do something like that?”
Luckily Porterfield, whose spirit of community service runs strong, had an army to back him up and help make the repairs. “I was in highway construction for 42 years. But I’m retired, so I thought I’d go ahead and do it,” he says.
Porterfield led a group of veterans from the Baker County Veterans Council, along with some civilian volunteers, in a park renovation project. Baker County supplied the materials, while the volunteers supplied more than 700 hours worth of labor, working four days a week for two months this summer to rebuild all the damaged property.
This isn’t the first time the Baker County Veterans Council has saved the day — they’ve repaired damaged porches for widows, raised funds to help disabled vets keep their homes and given cars to needy veterans, among other selfless acts.
Baker County Commission Chairman Jimmy Anderson says, “What I like about them is they are trying to teach people a sense of responsibility for their community, and for that, I give them high praise.”
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Tag: Florida
After a Family Tragedy, This Woman Sold Everything and Hit the Road to Volunteer
Once the kids are raised, some moms plan to enjoy a bit of well-deserved free time. But Carol Harr didn’t view her empty nest as a chance to relax. Instead, after raising her daughters in Centennial, Colorado and retiring from the state’s labor department, she decided to sell her home and become a full-time roving volunteer.
The 64-year-old Harr sold or donated almost all of her possessions, keeping just a few things in a storage unit. The remainder fit in her car, which she has driven to Florida, Georgia, and back to Colorado on volunteering missions for The Catholic Worker Movement, a social justice charity serving the poor, and World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms (WWOOF), an organization that connects volunteers with organic farmers.
The radical change in lifestyle from settled mom to nomadic volunteer was prompted by a personal tragedy. Five years ago, one of Harr’s daughters gave birth to a baby girl who died after living for less than a day. “It was a real awakening for me,” Harr told Claire Martin of the Denver Post. “I’d been living my life for the future, spending my time cleaning up from last week and getting ready for next week. I took an ecumenical class called ‘Just Faith,’ about social justice, and began learning about living in community.”
Harr lives off her state pension while staying in housing provided by the various charities she volunteers with or with friends. Now that she’s back in Colorado on a WWOOF post, she’s staying with couple in Denver who agreed to host a volunteer.
Harr’s current post lasts through October, and for her next project, she’s invested in a plan to band together with others to create a co-housing community on the site of a former Denver convent — a good base for her plan of living light and volunteering.
Harr’s daughter Kati Harr told the Post, “I loved my childhood home so much, (but) even more important than my nostalgia is actively supporting my mom’s innate and deeply rooted desire to help her community and fellow beings. I really feel the route to happiness is walking within your values, living in a way that upholds the things you hold to be the most dear. My mom is a shining example of this. I am so lucky and blessed to be her daughter.”
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These Veterans Choose to Fish Instead of Cutting Bait
For centuries, people have turned to this activity to achieve tranquility, enjoy camaraderie and decrease stress. No, not yoga. We’re talking about fishing.
It’s little wonder, then, that a new generation of veterans finds the activity to be therapeutic. As a result, organizations are springing up across the country to promote fishing among our nation’s heroes.
Take A Soldier Fishing organizes group fishing expeditions and offers civilians a chance to let military members and veterans know how much they are appreciated by treating them to a day where the only stress is whether or not the fish are biting. Currently, there are chapters in Oregon, Florida, Texas and New York. Prospective volunteers, as well as veterans who’d like to fish, can sign up via an online form.
And in Maine, veteran fishing clubs are proliferating, with the new organization Back in the Maine Stream joining two others already in existence. Disabled Air Force vet Marc Bilodeu and Vietnam Marine Corps soldier Bob Pelletier founded the club with the goal of coordinating fishing expeditions among disabled service members. Their inspiration? Project Healing Waters, a national organization that plans fly fishing trips for active military personnel and veterans.
Before a fishing trip six years ago, Bilodeu told Deirdre Fleming of the Portland Press Herald, “I had been very discouraged. I couldn’t fish because of my disability. They dragged me out on a rock, put a fly rod in my hand. I was kind of miserable. It took me an hour to catch a 3-inch bass. Then it was so emotional, I cried like a baby. And I realized, I was back, and who was gonna stop me now?”
The problem was that Project Healing Waters only came to Maine once a year, so Pelletier and Bilodeu started Back in the Main Stream.
During the fishing trips, Pelletier told Fleming, “Marc and I rag on each other a lot. We can. We had one veteran who lost his hands. When he came out of the washroom I said, ‘You wash your hands?’ He goes, ‘Yup.’ But he hasn’t any. He knows where I’ve been. I know where he’s been. It’s really hard to explain to people who haven’t been in the military. They don’t understand. But I know the sacrifices he made.”
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Once Silent, Disabled Florida Kids Now Have Someone Speaking on Their Behalf
Liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren’t the only rights you have in this country. You’re also entitled to an attorney. But that’s something disabled children didn’t have in the state of Florida.
Fortunately, that’s now changing.
According to HB 561, signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott on June 25, it is mandatory that dependent children with special needs receive an attorney in court. The $4.5 million allocated by the Florida legislature will go towards paying any lawyer who agrees to represent these clients, making legal services available for these children. (Attorneys, though, can provide their services pro bono if they choose.)
Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) will use certain criteria to determine eligibility. In order to be considered, the child must fall into one of the following categories: reside in a nursing home, have a developmental disability, be a human trafficking victim, or be an unwanted recipient of prescribed psychiatric drugs.
This new law is desperately needed considering Florida’s track record with children with special needs. An investigation conducted by the Miami Herald revealed that since 2008, the DCF knew of 500 children that had died of abuse or neglect. Of those victims, 85 percent were disabled. And the news gets even worse from there. Disabled children in the state are 17 times more likely to die from abuse or neglect than those without limitations.
One such death was Tamiyah Audain, an autistic girl who was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis. After her mother passed away, the child went to live with her cousin. In 2013, she was found dead in the relative’s apartment — her death due to neglect and abuse.
Since cases such as these are so common in the Sunshine State, hopefully this law is a step in the right direction. Everyone has the right to an attorney, and in the case of disabled children, this legal representation is even more necessary.
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When This Vet’s House Started to Crumble, Home Depot Stepped in with a $20,000 Renovation
Many of us have heard of the pervasive problem of homeless veterans, which the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates number between 130,000 and 200,000 on any given night. But what about vets who own homes, but due to disability or financial troubles, can’t afford to maintain them? Staff at the City of Miami Services Office became concerned about this issue and partnered with Home Depot to provide grants to renovate vets’ homes that badly need it.
The first to benefit from this program is Army veteran George Carswell. Disabled due to his service in Vietnam, Carswell lived with his mother Minnie Lee Spann in the home she purchased in 1964. Since her death, Carswell hasn’t had the funds to keep up with the maintenance, completing no significant repairs since 1978; the home was in danger of collapsing.
That’s when Home Depot stepped up and donated $20,000 to make the necessary improvements. Local Home Depot store manager Alberto Contreras even came out to work and personally oversee the renovation. “The house was in deplorable conditions and not livable,” Contreras told Carma Henry of the Westside Gazette. “If the house wasn’t repaired it would’ve been demolished.”
Not only did the volunteer workers stabilize the home, they beautified it, with new paint, windows, doors, sod, and a rose garden planted in the memory of Carswell’s mother.
The partnership between Miami’s Veterans Services Office and the Home Depot aims to help four more veterans with similar repairs this year. Miami mayor Thomas Regalado said, “My goal is to ensure that our Veterans are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. We are trying to get them the services they need.”
One way to reduce the number of homeless veterans is to prevent vets from becoming homeless in the first place, and the generous people behind this home repair effort in Miami are doing their best to achieve that.
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This Non-Profit is Making Sure Kids of Fallen Heroes Can Go to College
Funding a college education can be a difficult proposition for anyone, but for children of parents who died while serving in the military, it can be downright daunting. According to the Jacksonville, Florida-based nonprofit Children of Fallen Patriots, 15,000 American children have lost a military parent over the past 25 years. Now, the foundation is on a mission to identify as many of them as possible and offer them help paying their college bills. So far they’ve found 5,218 of these students, and paid $7.5 million toward their college educations.
“Our focus is on military children who have lost a parent in line of duty or any related deaths, like PTSD suicide or illnesses from exposure launch,” Army veteran David Kim, the founder of Children of Fallen Patriots, told Helena Hovritz of Forbes. “When government benefits don’t come through, we step in and pay for what they need.”
Hovritz writes that before Daniel Richard Healy’s final deployment, he told his son Jacob Centeno Healy that what he most wanted was for him to go to college. When Senior Chief Petty Officer Healy died, Jacob didn’t know how he could pay for college. “The VA wouldn’t provide benefits to me because they didn’t recognize me as my dads’ son,” Healy told Forbes.
So Fallen Patriots stepped in and funded Jacob Healy’s education. Now he works as a program administer for the organization, helping other people who’ve lost parents in the military find all the scholarships and government aid available to them, and covering the rest of the costs with funds from the nonprofit.
On this Memorial Day, Children of Fallen Patriots reminds us that we owe our fallen heroes so much. They gave our country their parents: the least we can do is provide them with a college education.
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This Impressive Teen Received a College Degree Before Finishing High School
It’s probably safe to say that most 16-year-olds are thinking more about getting their driver’s license than thinking about their plans for higher education. But that certainly wasn’t the case for one Hollywood, Florida teen.
Grace Bush astonishingly earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) a week before finishing high school. So how did she do it?
Grace, who completed her undergraduate degree in just three years with a 3.8 grade point average, participated in her school’s dual enrollment program that allows gifted students the opportunity to earn college credit for selected high school courses, Yahoo! News reports.
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This whizkid told CBS Miami that she started collegiate level courses when she was only 13-years-old at Broward College, enrolling in extra classes during summers to make it all possible. In case you weren’t amazed enough already, Grace also plays the flute for the Miami Music Project orchestra and the South Florida Youth Symphony, too.
Not only is this teenager incredibly smart (she started reading when she was only 2!), but she’s also incredibly hardworking, as well. The Sun Sentinel describes her brutal schedule of staying up until 2 a.m. every night studying and sneaking in naps on her commute to school every morning. And to maintain her rigorous academic schedule, Grace skipped out on attending typical school social activities such as school dances, football games or parties. She acknowledged to the paper that she “missed out on being a kid, goofing off and wasting time.”
Looks like Grace, the third oldest of nine siblings (who were all home-schooled by their mother Gisla), is just following in the footsteps of her likewise gifted family. “My two older sisters are doing it and I’m the third to do it,” Grace told CBS. “My oldest sister already graduated and my second oldest sister is graduating in the summer.”
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Her parents told the Sun Sentinel that they put their children on this path because they can’t afford to send them all to conventional four-year colleges or universities. (Grace took her courses at local colleges for free.)
So what’s next for Grace? She’s aiming even higher, naturally, and is planning to attend FAU’s master’s program and go on to law school so she can achieve her dream of becoming chief justice.
If past performance is an indicator of future success, Grace definitely has bright days ahead.
Can Being Naked Help Treat PTSD?
A group of veterans in Florida says they’ve discovered an (ahem) interesting way to treat their PTSD: By taking off all their clothes.
Max Sanchez is one such Vietnam veteran who lives with other vets at the clothing-optional condo complex The Fountains at Paradise Lakes north of Tampa, Florida.
Sanchez told Jennifer Titus of WTSP that he served in the Army for “four years, six months, three days.” Ever since Vietnam, he’s suffered from PTSD. Despite seeing counselors for therapy on and off ever since, only one thing really helps him — living the nudist lifestyle. “I don’t want to be violent. I don’t want to be angry,” he said. When he’s naked among fellow nudists, he said, “I forget about the whole world, I forget the outside world especially…It’s not a cure-all for everybody. I’m happy it’s pretty helpful for me.”
Titus spoke to Dr. Kevin Kip at the University of South Florida’s College of Nursing to find out whether nudism could possibly be a valid PTSD therapy. Dr. Kip has treated hundreds of people suffering from PTSD, and he explained, “The images from a traumatic experience, all of the emotions, the sights, the sounds, the smells, everything, the images — they get stored incorrectly in the brain. And if you don’t have a therapy that helps, essentially, store it properly, it will be chronic, disabling, and you’ll have nightmares, flashbacks.”
Sometimes unconventional approaches such as a radical change in lifestyle can be just the thing people need to prevent those troubling images from returning. “I’m always open to new therapies,” Dr. Kipp said. “Anything that’s stress reducing is likely to be beneficial.” Of nudism, he mused, “Perhaps it lowers inhibition, perhaps it lowers stress.”
With five million sufferers from PTSD in the country, any therapy — regardless of how non-traditional it is — that can reduce the number of afflicted is a welcome one.
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These Lamps Are a Lot Smarter Than They Look
We have smartphones, smart televisions, and smart thermostats, so why not smart lights?
As it turns out, we soon will. Last week, Silver Spring Networks announced it will build the largest-ever project to connect streetlights to a smart grid in the United States. The company plans to work with its client Florida Power & Light to build 75,000 smart lights in the Miami-Dade County area.
Not only will this be the biggest such undertaking yet, but it will be the first to connect streetlights to a network used for smart metering. Each lamp will serve as a node that collects information about the grid. Workers will be able to control the lights, monitor outages, and figure out how to fix problems remotely. Because the streetlights will be connected to the same grid as houses and businesses, the additional information they provide will help the company diagnose and fix outages more quickly and pinpoint where the problem is originating. “To them, a street light is just another sensor on the network,” Sterling Hughes, Silver Spring’s senior director of advanced technology told Jeff St. John of GreenTech Media. “The lighting serves as a perfect canopy to strengthen the network.”
Silver Spring has previously worked on smart grid streetlight programs in Paris and Copenhagen. Hopefully this smart idea will prove to be a useful model here in the States as well.
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How One County Makes Sure Their Trash Doesn’t Go to Waste
Typically with a trash dump, what goes in never comes out. But that’s not the situation with the Bridgeway Acres Landfill in Pinellas County, Florida.
As the St. Petersburg Tribune reports, for the last few months garbage trucks have removed 13,000 tons of trash from the landfill. Instead of taking up space and releasing dangerous greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, this garbage is taken to a waste-to-energy plant that burns it and then sells the generated electricity to Duke Energy.
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It appears that the economic benefits really do measure up. According to the report, Duke pays the city $30 for every two tons of burned trash which adds up to enough power for roughly 45,000 homes for a day and adds $1 million a month to the county’s pockets.
Don’t get us wrong — recycling trash is definitely better for the environment than burning it. But since this is garbage that’s already there, burning it will actually help free up space for the landfill, which is estimated to be at capacity in 75 years. “That’s the only landfill we have,” Kelsi Oswald, Pinellas waste energy section manager, told the newspaper. “By taking that material back out of the landfill, we save that space for the future.” The plant in question has also met EPA’s standards for air quality, their website boasts.
For these Floridians, one man’s junk is the whole county’s treasure.