Hope For The Warriors® Mission: “We believe those touched by military service can succeed at home by restoring their sense of self, family, and hope. Nationally, Hope For The Warriors provides comprehensive support programs for service members, veterans, and military families that are focused on transition, health and wellness, peer engagement, and connections to community resources.”
Kayak for the Warriors, “While we enjoy good fellowship and the natural beauty of Pine Knoll Shores, our service men and women across the globe willingly make unimaginable sacrifices to protect our country and our freedom. With our events in late May and early June, we celebrate their dedication and pledge that their needs will not be forgotten.“
History
On December 12, 2012, Town Manager, Brian Kramer (USMC ret) took several of the town’s staff and several Kayak for the Warriors volunteers to visit the newly built Wounded Warrior Barracks and Officers Club on Camp LeJeune. From left: Brian Kramer, Sarah Williams, Natalie Gibble, Judi Matzke, Bud Pitzer, Julie Anderson and Gary Watkins
Brian Kramer: “Pine Knoll Shores and friends of people connected to Pine Knoll Shores have been supporting Hope For The Warriors® (H4W) now since 2008. It is a great organization, and I witnessed it grow from its infancy.“
It originated right down the road at Camp LeJeune. Wounded men and women were coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and staying in their empty barracks: their buddies and their leaders were still deployed. The Commanding General recognized the problems: How to get them to medical appointments, manage medications, ensure rehab is accomplished properly, and perhaps most importantly, how to make them still feel like Marines and part of a cohesive unit. These were major problems in 2003. A visiting Lt Col Marine who was severely injured in Afghanistan, and returned to the US, started to negotiate the medical and support system to address his needs with his spouse. They found this task so daunting they knew others would need help as well and became a catalyst for Camp Lejeune.
From this grew the Wounded Warrior Barracks at Camp Lejeune, where the injured men and women were together,transported, supervised, and rehabbed.
Also from this grew H4W, which started out as a group of Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard spouses, all volunteers whose spouses were on active duty. One of the first things they did was organize a simple foot race on board Lejeune. It was smaller in scope and scale than our present Kayak Race here in PKS. In time they became Hope For The Warriors®, a national organization that does simply incredible things for the combat injured.
PKS will continue to support H4W as we want our service members to be able to come back home, go to school, get married, have a family, and be a productive part of society.
When any of us donate to charity, we always want to know if the funds are being used for what we think they are. One of the ways we can do this is by analyzing our charities through a well-established charity evaluation group.
Visit Charity Navigator, GreatNonprofits and GuideStar to see how H4W fares. You’ll find H4W is an absolutely first-class organization, consistently applying over 90% of their received funds to meet their mission. Help us Help them Support our Warriors.