GenVETS Explores a Community Support Model for Veterans and Military Families in Crisis

Programming example

I planned to post these photos awhile ago.

But then I received an email at 2 a.m. last Saturday that changed how I look at them.

BEFORE the Red Star Foundation Gala in Tampa began, a group of leaders, clinicians, advocates, and veterans gathered for the first conversation about something GenVETS, Inc. is researching and pursuing as a pilot project in Maryland.

The idea is simple to explain and incredibly difficult to build.

A place where veterans, service members, families, and caregivers can come when they actually need support.

Not a retreat you wait weeks to attend. Not a program that ends when the schedule ends.

But a community space for post-traumatic growth with ALL (ok, lots!) the alternative modalities of therapy in one place on a menu. Where vets & FAMILIES can come try a variety of different things:

at their pace in their space at their place 365 days a year.

Something different. Something brave.

Because one of the hardest truths in the fight against veteran & military suicide is this:

If we continue to fight the same way, we shouldn’t be surprised when the numbers don’t move.

We must be willing to:

Fund new ideas. Listen to new voices. Actually hear the words spoken by people who have lived through the fire of this struggle.

Those voices cannot be studied, bought, or manufactured.

They are born from experience. And they are treasures.

The 2 a.m. email last Saturday came from someone who was at the gala:

Part of it said:

“After Tampa I was in a very low place. During a layover … I started thinking about ways to end my life. I sat and cried my eyes out with how real the ideations were becoming.

…when I truly started to feel myself give up hope, when I started to not see tomorrow. When I was truly scared I was going to do it…I [later] asked for help.

I heard about your idea at the gala. If it existed, I would have diverted my flight to Baltimore.

I [don’t] need a retreat weeks from now. I need a place to go in the moment the battle begins…the answer is your [place]. It is a brilliant plan of attack. One that I have been waiting for.”

I have struggled to talk about that email. Not because it was validation. Rather a deep responsibility.

That kind of honesty deserves action.

The meeting was the first conversation about what that action might look like.

It was not a launch. It was not a celebration.

It was the beginning of asking a hard question:

What if we created a place people could run to when the battle actually begins?

Ultimately, doing something different means accepting the possibility that people will believe in it.

And once that happens…we don’t get to look away. I hope others will join us in looking #alwaysforward on this.

Edward Rothstein (COL, Ret.) Jimmy Anderson Dana Burl Joseph Smith Sharene Brown JoAnne (Jo) Bass Martin L Trujillo MBA MA Kent A. Corso Veterans Talking To Veterans Adora Winquist Leticia "Tish" Stropes Kristen Ferullo Jared Lyon

Communities

• Military & Veterans

Formats

• Unique Format

Goals

• Grow