Another Way to Help Our Heroes

So much good work being done:

I met Eddie, Jose, and Andy through my work as a volunteer for the Helping Our Heroes Foundation, a non-profit corporation that provides a way for donated funds and services to directly reach our injured military. HOHF is unique in that it is an all-volunteer effort. There is no paid staff.

HOHF provides mentors, coordinates specialty counseling, identifies and funds educational opportunities, and provides emergency cash grants for wounded soldiers and their families — with no red tape. Many parents and spouses give up a second income to move to Washington in order to care for their relative. HOHF has been able to give thousands of dollars in support immediately. One Army wife left her job and her house and spent her entire life savings keeping up with bills to care for her severely injured husband, who is at Walter Reed. Feeling completely diminished after yet another agency denied her request for financial support, we cut her a check that day. Upon receipt, she burst into tears and promised to pay it back so another family would have the same help when they needed it.

Since its founding in October, HOHF has taken in over $100,000 in unsolicited donations. These monies have been transferred to wounded soldiers and their families. At Christmas, HOHF provided over $20,000 in gifts, food, and winter clothing for the patients being treated at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Fifty plus morale gifts and supplies have been shipped this year alone to the combat-support hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, numerous items have been sent to support the morale of the medical teams as well as items for them to take when going out on civilian missions in the local towns.

Volunteering with HOHF is the most meaningful work I have ever done. It is a great feeling to watch the progress each soldier makes from month to month, to see them walking and running when they were once in wheelchairs or on crutches. After cochlear-implant surgery, a young Ranger — completely deaf a year ago when an RPG blew out his ear drums — can hear again. Another soldier has accepted a great job with a defense contractor in Washington and is looking into getting an MBA. The strength, courage, and humbleness of these patriots are inspiring. I know these guys are going to be okay.