Some of you may be wondering what we have been doing all year.  Here is my latest letter to our sponsors and friends.
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Warriors Hope would like to thank you for partnering with us this year to impact the local veterans and their families as they work to connect and develop their relationships and their lives.
 
We are especially grateful for your support during this chaotic year of the COVID “Pandemic”.  We have had to make many adjustments during this time in order to serve the Veterans and their families.  It has been a struggle for our organization as we have had to “rethink” many of our plans with the changing landscape of the COVID restrictions.
 
Warriors Hope has been able to do several activities but in new and creative ways.  Prior to COVID restrictions, we hosted Euchre parties and 2 Veterans & Family Movie Nights. Since then, we had 2 Drive Thru Veterans Appreciation Dinners, sponsored our 1st GotYour6 Virtual Run/Walk and Coffee4Vets on Veterans Day at a local Coffee Shop.
 
We were able to service veterans by providing venison to veterans and their families by motivating hunters to “provide a deer” for the area Veterans through our Venison4Veterans fall initiative.   Our Paws4Boots initiative has been able to provide companion dogs/puppies for 2 Veteran families who needed that companionship to help in their adjustment.
 
We have been able to help several veterans in the area with emotional support and assisted in their daily living adjustment through the work of the reintegration coaching of Dustin and myself. Dustin has been diligently working to complete his master’s degree and has just completed his classes.  He is working getting the appropriate State licensing and certifications in the areas of counseling and substance use disorders.  Dustin has also gotten Warriors Hope into a partnership with a First Responders program and helped to implement a podcast that has been presenting information to help Veterans and First Responders in the different areas where they struggle the most.
 
Stryker, our Therapy Dog in-training, has just completed all of his Therapy Dog certification training and we are just waiting for him (and Dustin) to go through the final certification test that was postponed due to COVID restrictions in December.
 
I have been working on developing a funding strategy so that Warriors Hope can have some underlying financial support that will give us latitude to do even more with the Veterans and families we serve.  I am, also, working on my professional certification through a “Tier training” course that is developing my competency level to be able to better understand and treat the needs of the military, Veterans and military/Veteran families. This TIER training is from the Center of Deployment Psychology. It involves training regarding Military/Veteran Culture & specifically focused treatment for those suffering with trauma, stress, anxiety, PTSD, TBI and reintegration issues.  
 
The Administrative Board has, also, taken on some new members who have been a significant help to making Warriors Hope more effective and viable because of their specialized view and expertise that they bring to our Board.  As you many have already noticed, we have taken on a Social Media Manager, Ruth, who has made a greater impact on how we are communicating though our social media platforms.  There has been a Veteran, Wil, who is exceptionally talented with web design who has taken over the role of our Web Master.  [This reminds me that we got our website up and running this year. You can find Warriors Hope at www.Warriors-Hope.org.] 
 
Warriors Hope will be creative as we go into 2021.  We are in the process of partnering with United Through Reading, that is a program where Veterans and/or active Military can read books to their loved ones through a secure internet connection. It is designed to give Veterans and their families an opportunity to still be connected as they are away from each other.   We plan to provide more dogs with our Paws4Boots, to have more times of Coffe4Vets and, in the fall, to service more families with Venison4Veterans.
 
As you can see Warriors Hope has been busy trying to meet the needs and provide resources to help our Veterans and families.
 
Once again, we appreciate your connection with us. Thank you so much for walking with us as we tirelessly try to impact change in the lives of the Veterans and families.  To continue to partner with Warriors Hope and impact the Veterans and their families please keep in contact with us.  You can donate online though our website: www.warriors-hope.org or through our Facebook page. 
 
Your partnership in this outreach to our Veterans makes this work possible! We cannot do it without a community of people.  Thank you, again, for your generous contribution and concern for the Veterans and families
 
Ken Patriquin
Warriors Hope Director

My Passion and Vision for Warriors Hope
After working at List Psychological Services as a therapist for a few years, an email came to me, from an organization called Give An Hour, that asked if I would give a “free” hour of therapy to post 911 Veterans and their families.  I felt moved that maybe I could help them, after hearing what some of them had been experiencing. So, I said yes. Then, a few months later I was asked about helping the Wounded Warrior Project. They informed me of their Project Odyssey [PO] weekends for Veterans. These are high adventure weekends that help the Veterans who are struggling emotionally and are in pretty troubled situations.  I love adventure-based counseling, having done it for years when I worked in a teen residential center.  The Wounded Warrior Project approved me to be the “civilian” therapist at these weekends.  I was a bit shocked because I did not have any military background.  They wanted me to attend so that the warriors would know that there was a “civilian” therapist who cared.

By this time, I had started to develop a need to truly understand what Veterans were going through, so I could give them helpful counsel.  At the PO the leader asked everyone, including support staff, why they were attending the weekend. So, I made a statement that many would say was a “scary” one. I told them that I knew nothing about Veterans and what they have gone through and truly would like to learn. Some of the Veterans asked if I sincerely wanted to know.  I told them I did and then they shared some experiences with me that had been devastating for them.  I was so affected that I could barely contain myself, emotionally.  By the end of the weekend, I had made a decision that I had to “do something”!  For many weeks later, I would return to the thought that I have to share with Veterans what I’ve learned about human nature, how to live healthy emotionally, and how to heal from the messes in our lives.  I started seeking out Veteran friends in my small town.  I was shocked that more and more Veterans would listen me, because of my passion to help in whatever way I could.  They helped me come up with a name and a “tagline” to use when talking to people.

We came up with Warriors Hope. The tagline is: "Winning the Battle after the War".  Warriors Hope began in 2015 and is now a 501c3 organization that is focused on helping Veterans and their families.  As I heard of the rate of suicide among Veterans and/or military men & women - it broke my heart.  I feel that these men and women and families have sacrificed their lives, livelihoods and family health for us; so how could we not do all that we can to help them. My commitment to every Veteran, family and former military with whom I work is that they will never have to pay for anything we ever do for them through Warriors Hope.  We are committed to a number of things at Warriors Hope.  We know that Veterans heal the best when they are in familiar and safe surroundings.  So, we try to create events that they can attend that will help them connect to each other, have time to relax and let the stressors subside for a while and to reconnect with themselves, the environment and their loved ones.

We are not real large yet, but we want to meet whatever needs we can that are keeping the returning military and Veterans from healthy reintegration back into civilian life.  I feel a personal commitment to help those who come into contact with Warriors Hope to show them that we respect, care for, and honor them.  I plan that, as we move forward, Warriors Hope will be an organization that will help many become effective again, become healthy in their relationships and families, and will truly feel that we have honored them for all that they have done.  My greatest vision is to be changing the suicide rate “one vet at a time.”