Who cares what color Katy Perry’s hair currently is. She’s proven her heart is true blue by auctioning off a concert experience to help homeless veterans get off the streets.
The pop star teamed up with Veterans Matter, a nonprofit started by Ken Leslie in 2012 when he learned that HUD-VASH (a combined initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing) doesn’t provide a deposit to homeless vets receiving rental vouchers.
The lack of a down payment is a huge obstacle for struggling, jobless veterans looking to take advantage of the program.
Perry auctioned off a ticket package — complete with VIP perks and a chance to meet the singer — to a stop on her Prismatic tour for $4,000 to Scott Vaughn of Oakton, Va. The money will make a big impact: providing housing deposits to 17 homeless veterans in Austin, Texas, and 5 in Detroit.
Vaughn attended Perry’s recent Cleveland show, where she told him, “Thank you so much for helping Veterans Matter, it is so important that we help those who fought for our freedom,” according to Digital Journal‘s Earl Dittman.
Leslie is quite skilled at interesting celebrities in Veterans Matter, with such musicians as Kid Rock, John Mellencamp, Ice-T and Stevie Nicks contributing to the cause. “These homeless veterans have guaranteed long-term housing and the keys are jingling in their hands,” Leslie tells Dittman. “All they need is the deposit to get them over the threshold. Katy and the others are helping us provide that final piece that pushes them over that threshold.”
MORE: What Do Kid Rock, John Mellencamp, and Mitch Albom Have in Common?
Tag: Veterans
When This Veteran Needed Help Paying for His Dog’s Service Training, This Young Girl Opened a Lemonade Stand
After two tours in Iraq and close calls during mortar attacks that left Nicholas Bailey with PTSD, a spinal injury and severe pain, only one thing helped the Army veteran: support from his German Shepherd, Abel.
His wife, Vanessa, tells DaShawn Brown of WCSC, “In the middle of the night when Nick is having a nightmare, he wakes Nick up by licking his hand.”
“It’s like he could feel the pain coming from Nick,” says Vanessa.
Because of this intense bond, the Baileys, of North Charleston, S.C., decided they wanted to train Abel as a service animal instead of applying to receive a new dog trained to help with PTSD. They started training Abel on their own, but once, when they were shopping, a box fell from a shelf and hit Abel, startling him and leaving him hesitant to enter stores — the exact places where Nicholas relied on him to calm his PTSD symptoms.
As a result, the Baileys investigated how to get Abel professional training in Arizona at a facility that can teach the German Shepherd to overcome his fear and complete his service dog lessons.
The only problem? The training (plus kenneling, medications, and food) costs $15,000. (A more affordable training program that the Baileys originally looked into didn’t work out.)
The Baileys set up a GoFundMe account explaining Nick’s condition and that going out in public can be a “nightmare” without the help of Abel.
All of this led to an 8-year-old girl the Baileys had never met, Rachel Mennett, learning of their plight and asking a pet shop in Summerville, S.C. if she could set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Abel’s training.
“I wanted to help him because my brother knew he needed help, and I wanted to do lemonade so I thought I could help him do it,” she tells Brown. The donations flowed in, many people giving money without even accepting a cup of lemonade.
“For me, it’s just amazing that an 8-year-old girl would show any interest in me or my dog,” Nicholas says.
As for that GoFundMe account? After the story about Rachel’s lemonade stand aired, many more people chipped in, and now the Baileys are just a couple of thousands of dollars shy of their goal.
MORE: After Losing Her Marine Son to PTSD, This Mom’s Mission is to Save the Lives of Other Veterans
Inspired by Homeless Veterans in His Own Family, This Boy Scout Helps Give Those in His Community a Fresh Start
The challenge facing 17-year-old Boy Scout Robert Decker: Finding a service project that benefitted his Egg Harbor Township, N.J. community.
To earn the Eagle Rank that he’s been working for years to attain, Decker decided that he wanted to make a difference in the lives of veterans struggling with homelessness.
He Tells Devin Loring of the Press of Atlantic City that he was inspired in this mission because his grandfather and several great uncles served in World War II, and some of his uncles experienced homelessness after they returned from war.
Decker contacted Jaime Kazmarck, a social worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Northfield, N.J., to inquire about how he could help homeless soldiers. Kazmarck is a coordinator with HUD-VASH (Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing), a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the VA to help homeless veterans transition off the streets. The program provides vouchers for rent payments to veterans and supports them with case management and counseling.
Kazmarck told Decker that many of the vets who finally get a key to their own apartment have few possessions to make it feel like home.
So Decker organized a campaign encouraging people to donate practical items to outfit these vets’ apartments, including towels, toothpaste and cleaning supplies.
Decker and other members of his Boy Scout troop stood outside the Somers Point supermarket ShopRite, distributing fliers about the project and talking to people about it. Over two nights, they collected more than $1,500 worth of supplies and donations. According to Loring, Decker collected enough to fill 20 laundry baskets and 10 boxes and was able to purchase 25 $10 Wal-Mart gift cards with money donated for the vets.
“We’re really grateful for Mr. Decker and the troop for getting this together,” Kazmarck tells Loring. “They did a great job. It gives them [veterans] a wonderful start in a new apartment or home.”
Decker has submitted documentation of all his work to the Eagle Scout board of review, who will soon tell him whether he has qualified. We think it’s a safe bet that this generous and hard-working scout will be rewarded with a new rank.
MORE: Veterans Receive Donations from An Unlikely Source: A Twelve-Year-Old Girl
For Veterans Suffering from PTSD, Relief is Found Deep Under Water
For U.S. soldiers, returning home from deployment can be a lonely event. That’s especially true for those suffering from PTSD; these veterans often isolate themselves from others, seeking the quiet and calm that they haven’t experienced since before their service.
Marine veteran Timothy Maynard of Greenville, N.C., has found a way to achieve that peace without isolation and now he’s sharing his secret with others.
After serving his country for eight years, Maynard struggled. “It was pretty bad,” he tells Josh Birch of WNCT. “I did a little bit of time with the rehabilitation clinic trying to get back to where I could kind of function with normal people and on my own.”
Then Maynard tried scuba diving through Scuba Now, and enjoyed it so much, he became an instructor. “Underwater it’s just kind of quiet, it’s slow, I don’t have to worry about distractions from other people, other noise,” Maynard tells Birch. “It’s just me and my breath. I’m just doing my own thing. So it lets me slow my mind down so that I can relax and I don’t have to stress.”
Maynard began to invite other vets to try scuba diving as therapy, and he must be a pretty convincing pitchman because over the past year, the Scuba Now shops in Greenville and Wilmington, N.C. have trained 400 veterans, bringing the total number of service members receiving instruction to over 2,500 in the past six years.
Scuba Now offers scuba certification, which normally costs hundreds of dollars, free of charge to any veteran who has earned the Purple Heart medal.
Maynard thinks scuba’s benefits have gone beyond just a fun hobby for him. “I attribute it to saving my life cause it kind of gave me meaning, gave me something to do again and now I just love it,” he says.
MORE: Meet the Marine-Turned-Doctor Helping Veterans Overcome PTSD
How Competing in a Horse Show Gives Disabled Veterans a Sense of Belonging
When serving their country, members of the armed services display their expertise on the battlefield. Back at home here in the U.S., some veterans are putting their skills on display in a different type of theater: the equestrian show ring.
Recently, a group of more than 20 veterans gathered at the Tulsa, Okla. fairgrounds to show off everything they know about horsemanship for a panel of judges at the National Snaffle Bit Association’s World Championship. All are participants in Heroes on Horses, a nonprofit providing equine therapy to disabled veterans. Some, like Army veteran Matthew Evans, are lifelong riders, while others had never been on a horse before they became involved with the program.
“It’s kind of like a milestone, you know?” Evans tells Tony Russell of News On 6. “Some of these people have never seen a horse before and they step up to a horse for the first time, and now here they are competing in a world show, you know? That just goes to show how far they’ve come and how great they are.”
While horse riding is meant to be therapeutic, there’s something about the thrill of competition that gives the disabled vets an extra boost. The judges evaluated them according to the stringent standards they use to measure other riders before announcing the winners. Still, Evans tells Russell, “Being able to compete with other veterans again isn’t so much a competition, it’s more of a camaraderie and a brotherhood. It’s kind of like a reunion.”
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As for the value of equine therapy, Marine veteran James Mincey says, “They always say that the best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse, so there’s a lot to that.”
MORE: This Injured Veteran Healed Himself. Now He’s Bringing His Secret to Others
How a Two-Week Bootcamp is Getting Vets Ready for Higher Learning
In 2008, Chris Howell began thinking of life after the military. He was serving in the Australian Army, Special Operations Command and was eager to head back to school, reinforced by some timely advice from his younger brother, David. “He said to me, ‘look, you can blow in a door and attack a room, but you need to learn how to read and write an essay.'” David, a top student at Sydney University at the time, took it one step further, putting together a crash-course of materials to help Chris prepare for college life. Five years later, this informal boot-camp became the basis of the Warrior-Scholar Project.
In 2012, Chris Howell partnered with Jesse Reisling and launched the project from Yale, offering a two-week intensive bootcamp for veterans returning to school. In addition to offering classes at Yale this year, they were also available at Harvard and the University of Michigan. By next year, the group plans to hold classes on 10 campuses.
Editors’ note: Since the original publication of this story, Jesse Reising, founder of the Warrior-Scholar Project, has become a NationSwell Council member.
The Surprisingly Simple Actions Helping Veterans Visit the Memorials That Honor Their Service
Collecting cans and recycling them for cash can yield a person quite a large amount of money. For one man, however, this bounty doesn’t go into his pocket; it goes towards helping out veterans.
Each week, Warren Vincent of Hutchinson, Kan. straps a towering pile of garbage bags bulging with cans to the back of his pickup with an elaborate web of bungees and cables and drives them to Midwest Iron and Metal Inc., where he usually receives a couple hundred dollars.
Every cent Vincent raises from his can-hauling missions goes to his program Cans 4 Kansas Honor Flights, which helps fund Kansas Honor Flight, an organization that flies veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to Washington D.C. to visit war memorials.
Each vet’s trip costs $700, and Vincent keeps that amount in mind as he travels around the town collecting cans wherever he sees them and picking them up from two drop-off stations he’s set up in McPherson County, Kan., including one at the NCRA Refinery, where employees have been especially generous with their leftover soda cans.
Since May 2013, he’s raised nearly $10,000 — enough to send 14 veterans on an unforgettable trip.
Vincent told Katy Hanks of the Hutchinson News as he drove her in his can-crammed truck that he could haul even more if he had a trailer. Later that day, some good news came through. “The workers at NCRA are going to buy me a trailer,” Vincent tells Hanks. “That’s the best news of the entire four years I have been doing this.”
Vincent’s efforts to help veterans are remarkable, and he’s not the only Kansan providing assistance to our former service members. According to Hanks, there’s a group of youngsters — made up of Kristin and Rikkie Estus and Connor and Katherine Nilson — that have raised $550 for Kansas Honor Flight by running a lemonade stand for the past three years. Thirteen-year-old Kristin Estus tells Hanks, “The best part of having the annual lemonade stand is hearing the veterans’ stories.”
MORE: Savvy Mechanics Help Disabled Vets Hit the Open Road
For Companies Unsure About How to Find the Right Vets to Hire, a New Website Has the Answers
Most employers have a pretty good idea about how to find recent college graduates to hire: running an internship program or visiting university job fairs are two great ways. But when businesses want to hire veterans — to gain good employees and to do their part to lower the veteran unemployment rate — some of them don’t know where to begin. But that’s about to change.
Recently, the website Employer Roadmap launched to help answer employers’ questions about hiring vets and their spouses and to connect veterans with businesses looking for specific skills.
The website, a joint project of Hiring Our Heroes and USAA, went live during a Veterans Jobs Summit at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. Kathryn Dill of Forbes spoke to Eric Eversole, the executive director of Hiring Our Heroes and the vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about what Employer Roadmap aims to accomplish: “There’s really no one-size-fits-all approach to helping companies recruit, hire, and retain veteran talent,” Eversole said. “This allows businesses to self-asses, and then we can deliver more customizable solutions.”
Part of the website’s mission is to educate employers on such matters like why hiring veterans’ spouses can still be a good idea — despite the fact that they often have gaps in their resumes brought on by frequent moves. Employer Roadmap also includes resources about how to recruit and train veterans and encourages employers to get to know the veterans already working for them and ask for their assistance in recruiting more service members.
While some larger companies are able to launch their own initiatives to train and hire veterans (think: Microsoft, Tesla, and General Motors), smaller companies might not have the resources to set up such a program. And that’s where Employer Roadmap comes in.
Army veteran Geoff Grant, USAA program director, told Dill, “Small to medium sized businesses say, ‘I don’t have this huge HR budget, what do I do to hire one or two vets? Where do I find them?’ That’s where the best practices tool is really key.”
Of the estimated 1.5 million veterans that are expected to join the civilian workforce in the next five years, we’re sure that many of them will find employment, thanks to Employer Roadmap.
MORE: Instead of Letting Veterans Struggle Post Service, GM Trains Them For Dealership Employment
A Small Island That Makes a Big Difference for America’s Veterans
Having just returned from leave, Luis Puertas was in the lead of a four-vehicle patrol unit in Iraq on Sept. 20, 2006, when an IED, hidden at the base of a street lamp, suddenly exploded. As a result of the blast, Puertas lost both of his legs and several members of the 4th Infantry Division were injured. Dozens of surgeries and years of rehabilitation put Puertas’ life on hold, and relaxation was the farthest thing from his mind.
But this summer, Puertas received a much-deserved vacation, thanks to Holidays for Heroes.
Founded in 2013 by summer resident Tom McCann, Holidays for Heroes brings Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families to Nantucket, Mass., for all-inclusive retreats. Banners at the nonprofit’s events say “Honoring Their Sacrifice,” which is exactly what the group does. With two to three retreats, dubbed “holidays,” per summer, they organize everything from beach barbecues and dinners to outings and entertainment for wounded warriors. Often, it is just unstructured rest and relaxation, though, which the veterans want most — so the organization’s primary task is simply to enable that by hosting them at no cost on the island. During Fourth of July weekend, the nonprofit hosted two heroes — Puertas, who is from Tampa, Fla., and Joel Dulashanti of Portland, Ore.
Scores of volunteers work tirelessly to make the holiday a perfect experience for visiting veterans like Dulashanti and Puertas. As year-round Nantucketer Donna Hamel says, “It might be a little overwhelming for some of the veterans, especially if they have disabilities.” And it can also be hard for the organizers — feeding, housing, entertaining and transporting the vets takes tremendous effort.
But that’s never been a problem.
“[Holidays for Heroes] gives people an opportunity to do something for a different cause than they might usually,” says Hamel. And it’s exactly that involvement that has driven a lot of the group’s success. As McCann says, “We’ve been very fortunate that every single club, organization, business and individual on this special island has gotten behind the Holidays for Heroes mission.” From clothing boutiques to inns to restaurants, support has poured in. For instance, the Independence Day Firecracker 5K has existed for years, but it adopted Holidays for Heroes as a benefitting charity.
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Even with such great community support, however, the veterans’ holidays would not be possible without McCann and the Holidays for Heroes leadership. For both McCann and the organization’s executive director, Magdalena Padzik, helping our servicemen and women is more than just a way to give back, it’s personal — their individual experiences have informed a deeper love for and commitment to our veterans.
On Memorial Day 2011, McCann was on Nantucket with his family. They fished, went to the beach and rounded out the day with a barbecue. That evening, while watching the celebrations from Washington, D.C., on television with his wife, Mary-Jo, McCann saw Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise perform a veterans’ tribute. It was at that moment McCann realized that the great day and the beautiful place — Nantucket — that he was blessed to experience should be shared with those who sacrificed for America.
Drawn by the idea of helping our veterans, McCann knew that doing so would require starting a nonprofit. To help him get Holidays for Heroes off the ground, he enlisted the help of his longtime friend Cheryl Bartlett, a fellow islander. Currently serving as the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bartlett leads a life of service. When McCann pitched the idea to Bartlett, she loved it, and has been his co-chair ever since.
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Padzik, another key leader, joined the group after meeting McCann at Holiday for Heroes’ first event. She and her family lived in Soviet-era Poland, and her father was part of the Solidarity Movement, a non-communist trade union that the U.S.S.R. tried to destroy through martial law. In order to stay safe, the Padziks moved to America when Magdalena was 4 years old. For more than a decade, she’s lived on Nantucket.
“Freedom is not something we had [growing up], which is really why this is so important to me,” says Padzik, whose appreciation for those who defend her liberty runs deep.
While Padzik’s days are already full — she’s a mother and works as the manager of a local bank — she, like McCann, can’t ignore the plight of veterans.
McCann says that “once you walk into Walter Reed [Medical Center],” where Holidays for Heroes finds most of its veterans (including Jason Redman, an Iraq vet and founder of the nonprofit Wounded Wear) to invite for a weekend on Nantucket, “and meet all these amazing young men and women… it just opens your eyes forever. The cause is big and the need is huge.”
Especially in light of the recent Veterans Affairs hospital scandal, the void in assistance for America’s armed forces is something that is not lost on Holidays for Heroes. While the centerpiece of the organization’s work is its world-class Nantucket getaways, it’s also beginning to reach out to veterans across the country to help them start businesses and fund their children’s education.
While similar programs do exist (such as Landing Zone Grace Veterans Retreat), Holidays for Heroes is unique because of the people of Nantucket that embrace both the organization and the veterans that it hosts. On the island with his fiancé, Amber, and daughter, Emilia, Puertas explains that the weekend arranged for him by the organization was “a lot more than just a vacation…it [was] much deeper than that.”
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That kind of experience, though, is sadly not the norm for America’s veterans. But whether it’s the countless hours put in by McCann, Bartlett, Padzik and other volunteers, or simply someone on vacation running with and cheering on heroes and civilians alike in the 5K, Holidays for Heroes and the whole island community shows everyone a unique model of service for those who’ve served.
As Puertas says of McCann, “There’s a lot of things in life we want but can’t have, but he takes that pressure away and treats you like you’re part of his family… we could hang out together and not feel so alone.”
For Homeless Veterans, Gardening Can Be the Therapy That Gets Them Back on Their Feet
It’s commonly known that gardening can be good for the soul, but for a group of veterans trying to leave homelessness forever, it can be a complete lifesaver.
Which is exactly why early last Wednesday, Coralei Kluver, an assistant manager at Home Depot was hard at work shoveling dirt to help build a greenhouse that will benefit a group of veterans living at Independence Hall, a 20-bed transitional housing center in Billings, Mont.
Home Depot provided a $10,000 grant for the greenhouse project, and the store’s employees brought the volunteer muscle. Many of them came to help in the morning before working a full shift at the store. “It’ll be a long day, but it’s worth it,” Kluver tells Zach Benoit of the Billings Gazette. “It’s good to be here and we’re glad to be helping.”
Kluver has a special motivation to help veterans: Several years ago, her cousin was killed while on active duty.
Since 2011, the veterans at Independence Hall have run a thriving garden, but the greenhouse will help extend the growing season in the chilly Rocky Mountain climate. Some of the produce grown is used as food for the vets at Independence Hall, while the remainder is sold at the farmer’s markets held in the center’s parking lot or donated to the community. One year, more than 800 pounds worth was dolled out.
Bill Holder, the director of veterans services for the local chapter of Volunteers of America (VOA), the nonprofit that runs Independence Hall, tells Benoit, “We’ve already got our community garden here, so hopefully we’ll be able to start earlier and grow more.” Holder says Independence Hall is “not a shelter. It’s a program where they transition to a self-sufficient lifestyle.”
Gardening “gives the opportunity to have something that’s therapeutic,” says Dave Shumway, the director of communications for the Northern Rockies division of the VOA. “They’re transitioning from being homeless to a more normal life and what’s more normal than working on a garden in your backyard?”
MORE: Meet the Marine Who Planted A Special Garden for His Fellow Vets