At Wounded Heroes of America, we insist on enjoying ourselves. Life is meant to be lived, after all, and how we spend our allocated time on Earth is up to us. Many of the men and women we serve have seen enough horrible things to last a lifetime, so whenever we get an opportunity to let loose and have a good time, we take it.
We believe our most valuable legacy will be creating relationships that last a lifetime. Usually that includes entire families, which means there are countless kids we need to feed and look after. We need to make sure they don’t get hit by stray arrows, fall off a horse, get hit by flying horseshoes, etc. But on this night, Mom and Dad step out without their children, thanks to one of our great friends, Carolyn Moret.
We have overwhelming evidence of how much people love our military personnel. We have friends with ranches and restaurants, who are well-positioned in places like the LA County Fair. We have friends in service clubs such as Rotary and Kiwanis. We have friends in cycling clubs and friends with boats. And now we have Carolyn, who is an adorable, fun, and caring lady. She also has a lot of friends who like to party. They’re not young kids, but they know how to have a great time.
On the night of Saturday, April 30, Carolyn and her friends hosted a marvelous event—New Orleans style—for our combat wounded. We danced, ate, laughed, and raised a glass or two.
A principle we believe in and understand well is that the resources to make life better for our combat wounded vets are in the community. Organizations don’t need to be the biggest or wealthiest to be effective, friends are what’s important. And we’ve been blessed in that area. Almost every relationship we have with our beneficiaries began with financial assistance. However, the long-term relationships have been established through finance classes, BBQs, baby showers, and other such events that bring everyone together. When there’s an event, we make a few calls, send a few texts, and we get a bunch of our vets to show up and mix it up with the community. That builds bridges and gives people the opportunity to tell our combat wounded vets something they need to hear, and often:“Thank you for your service.” The average American doesn’t know about the challenges our vets deal with on a daily basis, and getting to know our vets better is a step in that direction.
We’ve said many times that there’s nothing original in what we do, we simply have a good grasp of the obvious. Whether it’s a few dollars during a tough time, gifts for the kids at Christmas, or flowers on Mother’s Day, doing the simple things is what makes us different. And now we have a Mardi Gras event thanks to Carolyn Moret, a great friend and partner of WHOA. She’s going to make sure we “Let the Good times Roll”.