Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors UPDATE

Published: Thu, 12/21/17

Team Heartbeat ~ 
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Thank you all so much for making 2017 a great year to serve our Wounded Warriors.. As you know, with any organization, we can not do this without you!  We are very grateful! Our Christmas newsletter will be coming out the end of Jan or first week of Feb 2018 so you look for that. Great pics and stories!​​​​​​​
I would like to share with you what Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors is looking forward to doing to expand on our service to these incredible Heroes and their families.

First of all in 2017 our Emergency Assistance budget was 226% over budget ... Did we still serve? Absolutely! Our Emergency Assistance can include housing, utilities, food, gas, etc.

Moving into 2018 we have no doubt we will be needing as much or more to serve.
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BITS Warriors (Back In The Saddle Warriors) program is now being sought after by military Psychologists for their Warriors! To assist this program even more, Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors is exploring hiring a part time mental health specialist  to expand this program to Equine Assisted Psychotherapy.. A field requiring this important clinical part. If we can get funding thru donations and or grants it is something we want to bring to this program.

We also have found that so many wounded families also have special needs children or disabled children. For a long time, before we even started using Equine Therapeutic Riding for Warriors, it has been used with fabulous results in children. So we have a new program called BITS KIDS. We have 1 child in that one on one special program right now and we are thrilled with how she is doing.

Our K9 Healing Warriors, Service Dog program is doing excellent since we started 1 yr ago. Heartbeat pays for all the training the Warrior and dog go thru for the Warrior’s individual needs, including but not limited to: waking up from nightmares, finding lost keys, wallet, reminding of meds, blocking from people who get too close who might make the Warrior anxious, providing an exit strategy for the Warrior if an area becomes too crowded. We also pay for the dog if the Warrior needs one because he/she does not have a dog. A wonderful story regarding a 22 yr old prior Army Ranger and his dog in our K9 Healing Warriors program, click HERE to read their story.
 
Our Scuba Warriors program is also doing great and the Warriors taking this course say they find not only a whole new world but a new peace!

We are also exploring, if we can get additional funding, a part time, one day a week, Occupational Therapist to be able to assist all of the Warriors in our therapy programs with tools for memory retention and skills to organize the daily chaos in their lives. This would be such an awesome addition providing much needed help.

This spring we will have our FIRST “Refresh” event for spouses of Special Ops Warriors who deploy constantly. The spouse is the ultimate caregiver for the children and their Warrior and they, themselves are left behind. This event will be a lunch in a very nice restaurant and spa treatments. This refreshment will help them to be more rested when they get back into their own battles they have to manage. We are very excited at this.  Any donations in the way of spa treatments would be very appreciated.

Lastly, this summer we will have our FIRST Annual “Operation In Style”  This program will provide much needed new clothes for children of wounded warriors grades K-6th.  We would also have a fun BBQ as a background to give away new clothes for the children. New clothes are a great way to remove stress from the wounded family and also give the children a happy jump start into school.  We would also like to include winter coats in this giving.

We are so excited about the possibilities and hopefully many of you will want to share in this with your year end giving.  We know you have many places asking for your help, but we would consider it a huge honor if you chose Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors for your year end giving with a one time gift or monthly donation. Please go to our Donate page HERE to see how you can help by donating online or with a check. Thank you so much for assisting with our ongoing programs as well as our expansion we are looking at.

Merry Christmas!

Gratefully,

Janice Buckley
Founder/President Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors
"At Heartbeat, we provide emergency assistance,morale building,and innovative therapeutic services for wounded warriors and their families"
cell: 425-931-1047
"Stand Now. Stand Together, Stand for What is Right!"
Merry Christmas!