The strength of this community has never come from any one of us. It comes from what happens when we work together, when our clubs and neighbors line up behind a shared purpose and multiply what each of us could do alone.

This month’s update is a celebration of exactly that. You will meet the Azario Run/Walk Club walking beside us toward the 25th anniversary of September 11, the Azario Genealogy Club taking on the heart of our Wreaths Across America effort, the Bavis Foundation book drive our community answered in force, and a community painting itself pink this fall in the fight against breast cancer. Different missions, one spirit. Here is what we are building together.

Azario Run/Walk Club, September 2026

Share Neighbors in Service

Check the Team Reach Events Calendar for sign-ups and updates. Not yet on Team Reach? Join today using code AZNIS4VETS.

The Azario Run/Walk Club

Some of the best things we do at Neighbors in Service, we do not do alone. Our work with the Azario Run/Walk Club is a good example of why. Together, we take something this community already loves - moving together - and point it toward the people who served. What began with a single event has grown into a set of shared traditions, with more on the way.

Three of those traditions now anchor the year, and we are just getting started.

The first began on Memorial Day weekend. On May 23, nearly 40 Azario neighbors joined hundreds of others for the 11th Annual SRQ Vets Memorial Hike in Sarasota, and our NIS table helped us connect with even more of the local veteran community. With roughly 500 people there, the day raised funds and awareness for the vital work SRQ Vets does for local veterans. More than that, it gave our community a place to come together, honor the fallen, and remember what Memorial Day is really about. It is a fixture on our calendar now, one we return to every year.

The second is this month, and it carries special weight. On Friday, September 11, we walk together for the 9/11 Remembrance Walk, and this year marks the 25th anniversary of that morning. We gather at 7:45 AM at the Wellness Center parking lot for a two-mile walk, pausing for a moment of silence at the Barrel House at 8:46 AM, the minute the first tower was struck, before coming together afterward at Toasted Cafe. Twenty-five years on, we walk so that a generation who was not yet born in 2001 still learns what this day means.

The third takes us beyond our own county, and it is nearly here. On Saturday, September 12, a group of us drives to Fort Myers for the Tunnel to Towers 5K. T2T was born out of 9/11, and its work now includes a national push to end veteran homelessness that has reached our own backyard. The foundation is building the Bradenton Veterans Village right down the road, a new campus for veterans experiencing homelessness. Supporting T2T is not an abstract cause here. It is a neighbor. We are also in early conversations about bringing a T2T race home to Lakewood Ranch and Bradenton in 2027.

Three traditions, and more, are taking shape. If you would like to be part of any of it, join the Azario Run/Walk Club on Team Reach with code EARWC24. For the Fort Myers trip on the 12th, watch for registration and carpool details. Walk, run, remember. Stronger together.

Sponsor Our Azario Runners

The Azario Genealogy Club

Last month we told you a new collaboration was beginning. This month we can tell you it is off to a wonderful start. About 15 neighbors came out for the Azario Genealogy Club’s kickoff on August 11, and the enthusiasm in the room was exactly what this work needs.

Here is the mission, and it is the reason we believe this collaboration may become the heart of our Wreaths Across America effort. Before a wreath can be laid on a veteran’s grave and a name spoken aloud, someone has to know the name and know where the grave is. That is the work the Genealogy Club has taken on.

The focus for 2026 is clear: our two local cemeteries, Mansion Memorial Park and Old Memphis Cemetery, and every veteran resting in them. For each one, the goal is to have their information recorded on Find a Grave and their grave located, with a photograph of the headstone whenever possible, so we know exactly who is there and where they lie.

It is already moving. Since the kickoff, the team has developed a practical plan with both cemeteries, and the fieldwork is beginning: volunteers heading out to find plots and take photographs. At Old Memphis, that means walking every veteran’s grave, adding a photograph and a GPS location, and mapping the site so no one is ever lost again.

It is patient, ground-level work, and it is the foundation on which the rest depends. Once we know every veteran and every grave, we can place a wreath for each of them this December, and be certain not one is missed.

You do not need any experience to take part, just an interest in history and a desire to honor those who served. Join the Azario Genealogy Club on Team Reach with code FamTree25.

The Bavis Foundation

Some collaborations are ours to lead. Others are ours to amplify. When the Bavis Foundation came to us this summer, this was the second kind, and our community answered beautifully.

The Bavis Foundation has a history of running book drives with Operation Paperback, a national nonprofit that has shipped more than 2.9 million books since 1999 to troops overseas, veterans, and military families here at home. This summer, Bavis was asked to supply 700 books for military children at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, ahead of their family unit days. We were glad to be asked to help, and we put the call out to Azario.

You showed up, the way you always do. Together, our community donated more than 100 high-quality children’s books, along with cash to buy more, and helped the Bavis Foundation reach its goal. Those books are now on their way across the Pacific, a small piece of home for children whose parents serve.

The Bavis Foundation carries out this kind of work all year, and we are proud to stand with them. You can follow what they do at bavisfoundation.org. And to everyone in Azario who gave: thank you. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about a community that shows up.

Check Out the Bavis Foundation

Azario Think Pink

There is hardly one among us who has not been touched by breast cancer. A mother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor. That is why, when Azario comes together each fall to fight it, Neighbors in Service is proud to stand with our community.

This October, we are painting Azario pink. All month long, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, neighbors and clubs across the community will gather for a series of fundraising events: MahJong and Bunco, pickleball and tennis, bowling, and a Girlfriends’ Happy Hour, culminating on November 2 with the signature Think Pink Golf Tournament. Last year the community raised $64,000. This year the goal is $100,000, and 100 percent of every dollar goes to Moffitt Cancer Center in support of breast cancer research and care.

For Neighbors in Service, this fight is close to our mission. Breast cancer affects the women who serve and those who have served. Among active-duty women ages 40 to 59, it has been reported at rates roughly 15 percent higher for White servicewomen and 17 percent higher for Black servicewomen than for comparable women in the general population. Women veterans need accessible screening, diagnosis, treatment, and long-term support, and the VA provides mammograms, imaging, genetic counseling, treatment, and navigation, including breast health services and risk assessments for eligible veterans under the SERVICE Act. Standing with Think Pink is another way we support the women of our military community.

However you like to spend a fall afternoon, there is a way to take part, and each one helps. Come play, come cheer, sponsor an event, or give directly. Watch Team Reach and the Paint Azario Pink calendar for the full schedule.

Learn More about Azario Think Pink

Let's Build Together. These four are just the beginning. Every one of them started the same way, with two groups realizing they could do more together than apart. If your Azario club or group shares our values, we would love to find ways to work together. Let's talk anytime at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.

Wreaths Across America

If the collaborations above show what our community can do together, Wreaths Across America is where much of it comes home. It is one of our Honor Pillar Partners and the signature initiative that ties this work together: the genealogy research, the cemetery mapping, and, on one December morning, a wreath on the grave of every veteran we can reach.

Here is where sponsorship stands. Historic Old Memphis Cemetery is fully funded, with a wreath for every veteran resting there. Our focus now is Mansion Memorial Park, where 1,303 wreaths have been sponsored and a few hundred more are still needed. If you are able to sponsor a wreath this year, Mansion is where it will do the most good.

And the effort keeps growing, in a good way. As the Azario Genealogy Club maps Mansion, we are finding more veterans to honor than our original goal ever accounted for. The need is only getting bigger, and every wreath counts.

On Saturday, December 19, National Wreaths Across America Day, we will gather at both Mansion and Old Memphis to lay the wreaths, speak the names, and remember. Mark the date. There will be a place for you.

Each wreath is $17, and every one says the same two words: Remember me.

Sponsor a Wreath

Read our past month’s insight article to learn more about the ways we are honoring those who have served and preserving their stories.

Our Pillar Partners

Neighbors in Service is proud to stand behind a group of organizations doing extraordinary work for veterans, military families, and first responders. Each has its own home on our Substack, with a direct way to help, whether that is giving, volunteering, or becoming a mentor.

Every link routes straight to the organization, and Neighbors in Service never handles the funds, so 100 percent of your support reaches the cause. Meet them all, and find the one that speaks to you.

Our Pillar Partners

Around the Community

Beyond our own programs, we help spread the word for the veteran service organizations doing great work across our region. Two events are worth your calendar right now:

• SRQ Vets Hibachi for Heroes — Saturday, November 7. An outdoor hibachi dinner supporting local veterans. Reserve at Hibachi.SRQVets.org.

• VVAS Marine Corps Birthday Ball — Saturday, November 14, at the Palmetto Marriott. A community evening benefiting Our Next Mission and its work housing at-risk veterans. Details at vvaservices.org/events.

Coming Soon on Substack: A Conversation with Tim Brown

As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, we have something special coming to our Substack. Later this month, our in-depth article will feature a conversation with Tim Brown, a retired FDNY firefighter who survived that day, about his powerful new book, The Greatest Love.

The book is about what Tim carried out of the worst day imaginable, and how any of us can live with courage, purpose, and love after loss. It carries a foreword by Admiral William H. McRaven. We think it will stay with you.

Follow us on Substack so you do not miss it.

Share Neighbors in Service

Stay Connected

Two easy ways to be part of what comes next.

Azario neighbors, join us on Team Reach. This is where it all happens. You will get weekly notice of what is coming up, and it is where you sign up to take part, from the 9/11 walk to the Fort Myers race to the wreath effort at Mansion. If you want to show up and lend a hand, this is the channel to be on. Use code AZNIS4VETS.

Help us grow the circle. You are already reading this, so you are already with us. The best thing you can do now is bring someone else along. Forward this update to a neighbor and invite them to subscribe, and follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/neighborsInservice, then share a post now and then. Every new person is one more neighbor ready to stand with our veterans, military families, and first responders.

You can always reach us directly at drjack@neighborsinservice.org with any questions or ideas.

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) Florida Nonprofit (EIN: 33-1691201). Educate · Strengthen · Honor. 🌐 www.neighborsinservice.org | 📧 info@neighborsinservice.org | 📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS | 👍 facebook.com/neighborsInservice

On September 11, 2001, firefighter Stephen Siller had finished his shift when he heard what happened. He drove to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, found it closed to traffic, strapped on sixty pounds of gear, and ran through it on foot toward the towers. He did not come back.

The foundation named for him has spent the years since paying that debt forward: mortgage-free homes for catastrophically injured service members and the families of fallen first responders, and housing for veterans who have gone without it.

Neighbors in Service supports the Tunnel to Towers Homeless Veteran Program, and we support it as neighbors.

WHY THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT

The Bradenton Veterans Village is rising in our own community, minutes from where many of us live. Veterans who have gone without stable housing will have a front door here, an address, and people around them.

That is not an abstraction for us. It is down the road.

Most national giving asks you to trust that your dollar lands somewhere you will never see. This one lands where you drive. If you have passed that site and wondered what you could do, this is it.

THE BRADENTON VETERANS VILLAGE

The village is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2027. It is supportive housing, single-room occupancy, one veteran per unit.

Applications are open now. A veteran who applies this year can be living there when the doors open. A veteran who waits until it opens may find it full.

To qualify, an applicant must be over 18, a veteran with an honorable discharge or a discharge under conditions other than dishonorable, with a minimum of 180 days of service including at least one day of active duty. The veteran must be experiencing homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless, and willing to undergo a background and credit check.

The application asks for a government-issued photo ID, proof of military service such as a DD-214 or VA ID, income verification, and documentation of homelessness or risk of it, which can include a landlord notice or a verification letter from a provider serving the unsheltered.

If you are a veteran in Manatee County in an unstable housing situation, or you know one, start now. Gathering a DD-214 takes time that a deadline will not give back.

Veterans Village Application

WHY THIS PILLAR

Housing looks like Honor, and it is. Answering what a veteran gave with something permanent is exactly what remembrance should mean when the person is still alive to receive it.

It is also Strengthen. A veteran with an address can hold a job, keep an appointment, receive mail from the VA, and be found by the people trying to help. Stable housing is the floor everything else in our work is built on. Financial literacy, career mentoring, and community support all assume a place to sleep.

HOW TO STAND WITH THEM

Give to the Homeless Veteran Program. We maintain a Neighbors in Service giving page directed to this program, with local emphasis on the Bradenton Veterans Village.

Give Through Neighbors in Service

Support our Fort Myers team. Members of our community are running the Tunnel to Towers 5K in Fort Myers on Saturday, September 12. Our roster is set, but the giving is open, and every dollar raised goes to the foundation.

Support the Team

Watch for the collection drive. We will be organizing a community collection of pantry items, books, and clothing in support of Tunnel to Towers housing residents. Details are being finalized, and our subscribers will hear first.

WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES

Neighbors in Service does not accept donated funds for its own operations. Every dollar given through our page goes directly to Tunnel to Towers. They process it, they receipt it, and they build with it.

Our role is to bring more neighbors to this effort than any one household, parish, or club could reach on its own.

Stand With Us

If you are a veteran in Manatee County without stable housing, or you are close to losing it, the Veterans Village application is open and the village opens next year. Manatee County Veterans Services can help you assemble what the application asks for. Call them at 941-745-3795, or contact us and we will help you find your way there.

If you are a neighbor, this is the most concrete thing on our list. Give what you can, run with us next year, set aside a bag of pantry goods when the drive opens, and tell someone else about the building going up down the road.

Questions, or want to get involved? Contact Dr. Jack McGourty at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

Wreaths Across America

Remember. Honor. Teach.

Every December, more than three million wreaths are placed on veterans’ graves across the country by volunteers who say each veteran’s name aloud as they lay them. Wreaths Across America has been doing this since 1992. Their mission is three words: remember the fallen, honor those who serve, teach the next generation the value of freedom.

Neighbors in Service brings that work to Manatee County.

WHAT WE DO HERE

Our approach is holistic. Every veteran buried in this county deserves four things: a story recorded, a flag placed, a stone marked, and a wreath laid. A wreath on an unmarked grave is a gesture. A wreath on a grave whose occupant has been identified, whose service has been documented, and whose resting place has been tended is something else.

That commitment runs across three tracks.

Preservation and genealogy. We work with the Azario Genealogy Club to identify every veteran grave in Manatee County’s private and neglected cemeteries, transcribe markers, record GPS data, and build accurate records on Find a Grave. This is patient, unglamorous work, and it is the foundation everything else rests on.

Remembrance and ceremony. Flags placed across private cemetery sites each Memorial Day. Wreaths laid each December, in cooperation with the Knights of Columbus San Damiano Assembly 3192 Color Guard, the American Legion Auxiliary Unit 325, and the Manatee County Veterans Council.

Youth and civics education. Local military history taught as a living classroom. This track is in development, and we will share details as programs become available.

OUR 2026 CEMETERIES

We add cemeteries each year as our capacity and our volunteer base grow.

Mansion Memorial Park, Ellenton. Roughly 1,700 veterans rest here. This is our largest site and the one with the greatest remaining need for wreath sponsorships this year.

Historic Old Memphis Cemetery, Palmetto. Established in 1904. We will honor approximately 100 veterans here, a number that has grown as our documentation work has continued. On December 19, Old Memphis will host the first Wreaths Across America ceremony ever held there, approved by the Florida Department of Financial Services. Those veterans were identified through the genealogy work described above. That is what the preservation track makes possible.

NATIONAL WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA DAY

Saturday, December 19, 2026. Ceremonies at both cemeteries. Families welcome. No experience needed, and no commitment beyond showing up.

HOW TO STAND WITH THEM

Sponsor a wreath. Seventeen dollars places one wreath on one veteran’s grave.

Sponsor a Wreath ($17)

Your sponsorship goes to the Manatee County cemetery with the greatest remaining need.

You can also scan the code below via your mobile phone:

Lay wreaths on December 19. Come to either cemetery. You will be handed a wreath, given a name, and asked to say it out loud. Bring your children.

Place flags on Memorial Day. Multi-generational flag placement across our cemetery sites each May.

Document a veteran. Work with the Azario Genealogy Club to research, transcribe, and record the veterans resting in Manatee County. Suited to anyone patient with records, and no genealogy experience is required.

WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES

Neighbors in Service accepts no donations for itself. Your sponsorship goes directly to Wreaths Across America through their own secure gateway, and they process and receipt it.

One program works differently, and you should know how. Wreaths Across America returns five dollars to the sponsoring group for every wreath sponsored during a giving period. Those funds come to Neighbors in Service, and 100 percent of them go back into wreaths, placed on veterans’ graves at the Manatee County cemeteries with the greatest remaining need. We decide where they go. We keep none of them.

Stand With Us

If you have a veteran resting in Manatee County, tell us. We want their name in the record and a wreath on their stone.

If you are a neighbor looking for a way to serve, this is one of the most direct opportunities we offer. Sponsor a wreath, place a flag, document a name, or simply show up on December 19 and lay a wreath with your own hands.

Questions, or want to get involved? Contact Dr. Jack McGourty at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

American Corporate Partners

Someone who has been where you are standing.

A veteran leaves the service with a record of real accomplishment. Leadership under pressure. Logistics at scale. Technical skill that took years to build. Then the resume goes out, and nothing comes back.

The problem is rarely capability. It is translation, and the absence of anyone in the room who can tell you how the civilian world actually works. Who reads the resume. What the interview is really asking. Whether the salary offer is good. Which of your instincts from the service will serve you here, and which one will get you in trouble.

American Corporate Partners exists to put that person in the room.

WHAT ACP DOES

ACP is a national nonprofit that connects veterans and active-duty military spouses with business professionals for a year of one-on-one mentoring. There is no cost to the veteran or the spouse. The mentor commits to a monthly conversation for twelve months.

That is the whole model. One person, one year, no transaction at the end.

Mentoring tracks cover career planning, professional networking, leadership development, small business and entrepreneurship, and work-life balance. The pairing is made on fit, not geography, so a veteran in Bradenton may be matched with a mentor anywhere in the country.

WHY THIS PILLAR

ACP is central to our Educate pillar. It is also, less obviously, Strengthen. Every mentor ACP prepares is a neighbor who has been made useful to a veteran, and a community with more of those neighbors in it is a stronger community. That is the same logic behind every training program we support.

I mentor through ACP myself, in the entrepreneurship track. I have watched veterans arrive with a business idea and no framework for testing it, and leave a year later with a real venture or a clear-eyed decision not to build one. Both are good outcomes. Neither happens alone.

IF YOU ARE A VETERAN OR MILITARY SPOUSE

You qualify if you are a post-9/11 veteran or the spouse of an active-duty service member. The program is free. You will be matched with a professional in your field of interest and meet with them monthly for a year.

You do not need a polished plan to start. Many of the veterans I have worked with came in knowing only that something needed to change. That is enough to begin.

Apply for a Mentor

IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL

The most common reason a qualified person declines to mentor is the belief that they are not expert enough. That belief is almost always wrong.

You are not being asked to be a career counselor. You are being asked to be someone who knows how a particular industry works and is willing to say so out loud, once a month, for a year. If you have hired people, run a team, built a business, or simply spent a career learning how your field actually operates, you know things a transitioning veteran cannot look up.

Think about who lives in this community. Retired executives. Business owners. Engineers, accountants, HR professionals, people who spent thirty years in an industry and now have their mornings free. This region is unusually rich in exactly the experience ACP is looking for.

An hour a month. Twelve months. That is the ask.

Become a Mentor

IF YOU WANT TO GIVE

ACP is free to veterans and military spouses, and mentors serve without pay. What that free program costs is the technology and the staff who make thousands of matches a year, and that is what donations fund.

Give to ACP

On the donation form, check “I’m giving on behalf of” if you would like your gift credited to Neighbors in Service or to the Knights of Columbus.

LOCAL INFORMATION SESSIONS

We are planning information sessions in Manatee and Sarasota Counties for anyone considering becoming a mentor, with time for questions from people already doing it. Dates are being finalized, and our subscribers will hear first.

WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES

Neighbors in Service accepts no donations for itself. Your gift goes directly to American Corporate Partners through their own secure gateway. They process it, they receipt it, and they use it.

Stand With Us

If you are a post-9/11 veteran or a military spouse anywhere in this region, the mentoring is free and the application takes very little time. Whatever you are trying to figure out, someone has figured out a version of it already.

If you have built a career and have an hour a month, this is the most concentrated use of your experience I know of. One veteran. One year. A conversation that keeps happening.

Questions, or want to talk it through before you apply? Contact Dr. Jack McGourty at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

New Memphis Cemetery, Palmetto. One of the two headstones in this story.

Some debts are paid with ceremony. Others are settled with paperwork. Too often, we leave the paperwork unfinished.

I was sitting in a Manatee County Veterans Services workshop on VA benefits, listening to a presenter walk a full room through what a veteran and a veteran’s family have earned. Burial allowances. Headstones and markers. Interment at a national cemetery. Survivor support. It was a good session, plainly delivered, and somewhere in the middle of it a thought arrived that had nothing to do with the slide on the screen.

My father never took any of this.

He served. He flew. He was wounded. He came home, went to work, sold life insurance in New York City, and raised a family in New Jersey. He died in 1994 without ever, as far as I know, walking into a VA office. I had never wondered why. Sitting in that room, I started to ask.

Share Neighbors in Service

WHAT I HAD, AND WHAT I DID NOT

The question became a project when I decided to find out whether my father was eligible for interment at Sarasota National Cemetery. Bringing him from New Jersey to Florida would be a way of finishing something. It would also require proof of service.

I started by looking for what I had.

What I had was a boy’s memory of a leather flight jacket with the name Dear Becky painted across the back, thirty-one small bombs stenciled in a row, six swastikas, and something on the front I remember as a duck. I had three medals that hung in my room: the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Purple Heart, and a third I never identified, carrying two small devices I now believe were oak leaf clusters. I had an obituary saying he was a bomber pilot who flew with the squadron that included the Memphis Belle. I had a family account of thirty-one missions over Europe.

What I did not have was a single sheet of paper issued by the United States government.

All I had was memory and metal. None of it was a discharge document.

So I started with the free indexes, and they carried me further than I expected. An indexed Army enlistment record put John W. McGourty at Fort Jay on Governors Island in July 1942, a private, single, two years of college, employed as a clerk at a financial institution. A twenty-one-year-old bank clerk from Middletown, New York, walking into a recruiting station in the middle of a war. That cost nothing and took an evening.

He entered as an enlisted man. Both his obituary and my family say he flew bombers by the end of the war. If that is right, he was selected for aviation cadet training and commissioned along the way. Thousands of men followed that path in 1942. I have not yet found the paper that shows him making that transition. I will not pretend otherwise. The Air Force did not exist as a separate service until 1947. Whatever my father flew, he flew it in the Army Air Forces.

Then I learned that the Memphis Belle flew with the 324th Bombardment Squadron of the 91st Bombardment Group, out of RAF Bassingbourn. One clause in an obituary had handed me a squadron, a group, a base, and a shelf of records to go and read.

B-17G Flying Fortress #42-38128 served with distinction in World War II. Assigned to the 324th Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group. based out of RAF Bassingbourn in England.

THE FIRE

I submitted a request to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

The answer came back saying the record could not be located, and that if his file had been held there in July 1973, it would have been in the area most severely affected by the fire.

Many families have never heard of that fire. It began shortly after midnight on July 12, 1973, on the sixth floor of that building, and it was not declared out for four days. It took a very large share of the Army and Army Air Forces personnel files for veterans discharged between November 1912 and January 1960. No duplicates. No microfilm backup. Millions of service records ceased to exist.

My father’s file is very probably in that number.

I have thought about that letter often. My father was the kind of man who would have written to St. Louis only once. If he ever asked for his separation papers and was told the file was gone, I can picture him folding the letter and putting it away. He would have decided the matter was finished. I cannot prove that is what happened. I can say that a destroyed record and an unclaimed benefit often go together.

The archives do not tell you this, so I will. A missing record is a barrier, not a verdict. There are ways to rebuild a file. Alternate sources exist. Award orders, morning reports, hospital and casualty files, final pay vouchers, and unit mission records can help. The file may be gone, but the war is still documented. The evidence is scattered across many collections, waiting for someone to bring it together.

My search continues.......

On July 12, 1973, an inferno at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis destroyed an estimated 16 to 18 million official military personnel files, forever altering what remains of millions of WWII service stories.

A CEMETERY WITH NO OWNER

I would have called all of that a private family question until it stopped being one.

Neighbors in Service and the Azario Genealogy Club have begun documenting the veterans buried in the private cemeteries of Manatee County. There are more than a hundred such cemeteries. Some sit behind houses. Some sit in groves. Some have no owner listed anywhere in the county records.

Memphis Cemetery is one of these. It lies several miles northeast of Palmetto, on the north side of 25th Street West, and when the old ground filled, the burials moved across the street into what everyone calls New Memphis. The oldest marker anyone has found there belongs to Classie Williams, who died in January 1907. It is a historic African American cemetery, serving generations of families from Palmetto’s Memphis neighborhood, among them the Black farmers who grew the tomatoes, celery, and cabbage that fed this region.

Marion Stevens of Stevens’ Funeral Home told the survey compilers that the cemetery land was given to the Black community by, in his words, an old German or foreign man from up north, who entrusted it to a council of Black pastors to administer. Those ministers died. Their churches were abandoned. When the survey was written, no owner appeared on the county tax rolls. Forty-six years later there is still nobody to ask permission of, nobody to hand a completed survey to, and no fund for upkeep.

A cemetery with no custodian keeps no records of its own. That explains much of what we are finding.

When we began, local leaders put the number of veterans at Old Memphis at somewhere around forty-six to fifty. Our December wreath goal was built on that figure.

Then we opened Tombstone Inscriptions in Cemeteries of Manatee County, Florida, 1850–1980, compiled by volunteers of the Manasota Genealogical Society, and started reading.

It is worth saying what that book is and is not. It records what was carved on stones that were standing and legible when volunteers walked those rows. It is not a burial ledger. Anyone lying out there under nothing was never in it, and never will be.

At least one hundred veterans are documented at Old Memphis. Deaths run from 1918 to 1984. Four of the war-era attributions we found are impossible on their face, crediting men with service in wars that ended before they were born.

Forty-six was never the true count of who lies in that ground. It was only the count readily available from memory.

Florida Heritage marker, Old Memphis Cemetery, Palmetto. Erected 2013.

SEVEN NAMES ACROSS THE STREET

We were counting Old Memphis when the New Memphis figures surfaced beside them.

Seven.

Seven documented veterans across the street, compared to a hundred on this side. One community, separated by a single road, with a fourteen-to-one gap in who has been recorded. Nobody believes there are only seven. That number tells us almost nobody has ever looked.

And on a list that short, two of the names are the same.

Noble John Rutland was born in Bradenton on December 15, 1930, and was a lifetime resident of this county. A Veterans Affairs death file records his enlistment in the United States Marine Corps on March 5, 1952, his release on March 1, 1954, and his period of service during the Korean War. Whether he was sent to Korea, and what he did there, is not in any record I have yet seen. He died on a Thursday in October 1974, at Manatee Memorial Hospital, aged forty-three.

His obituary ran in the Bradenton Herald the following Tuesday, and it misspells his first name as Nobel. It lists nine surviving relatives: a widow, four children, his mother, a sister, and two brothers. His services were held at Mt. Pilgrim Primitive Baptist Church, with the Reverend Ceasar Allen officiating.

His grave carries a government-issued marker. NOBLE J RUTLAND. CPL US MARINE CORPS. Someone applied for it. Someone filed the paperwork my father never filed.

Two men, buried a thousand miles apart, who enlisted ten years apart. One left a jacket and no record. The other left a record we can still read.

Noble J. Rutland, New Memphis Cemetery. A government marker, applied for by somebody, forty-two years before anyone came looking

THE OTHER RUTLAND

There is a second Rutland in New Memphis, and the difference between the two is the whole question this article has been circling.

Charlie Rutland was born in Macon, Georgia, in May 1892. He came to Bradenton from Atlanta around 1970 and died in February 1979, at eighty-six. His obituary names a widow, a daughter and a son both living in Bradenton, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His service was held at Greater Mount Pilgrim Primitive Baptist Church with the Reverend Ceaser Allen officiating, the same church and the same pastor who buried Noble Rutland five years before.

And his obituary says he died at a Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Here is where it gets difficult. I have three sources on Charlie Rutland, and they give three different answers.

Find a Grave identifies him as a veteran. There is a small V beside his name, and that badge is not decoration. It is what places a man on the veteran lists drawn from that database, including the ones this project has been working from.

The 1980 transcription of his stone says nothing at all. The volunteers took his birth and death dates in full, down to the day, which means the marker was legible when they stood in front of it. They saw everything on it. There was no branch, no rank, no war.

And the obituary puts him in a VA hospital, which is suggestive and is not proof. A line in a death notice establishes where a man died. It does not establish what he did in 1918.

So somebody, at some point, classified Charlie Rutland as a veteran. The memorial does not say who, and it does not say on what evidence. It may have been solid. It may have been the same inference I was three sentences away from making myself, which is that an old man who died in a VA hospital was probably a soldier once.

That inference is reasonable. It is not evidence, though. I was ready to accept it because it matched what I hoped to find.

Noble Rutland lies under a government marker that names his rank and service. Charlie Rutland lies under a stone his family bought, and it says nothing about what he may have done for this country. The difference between the two men is not that one served and one did not. The difference is that for one, we know. For the other, we do not.

The honest entry for Charlie Rutland is neither veteran nor civilian. It is service not yet documented. That is what this whole project aims to change.

WHAT IS ACTUALLY BROKEN

I thought this was a story about missing records. Some of it is. My father’s file cannot be located and was likely lost in St. Louis, and Memphis Cemetery lost its ledgers when the pastors who kept them died, and nobody inherited the responsibility.

But Noble Rutland is documented from every direction. A federal death file with his service dates. A government marker naming his rank. An obituary listing nine relatives. Four strangers have built his memorial page over twelve years.

Everything about him is written down. Still, this December he will lie across the street from the ceremony, with no wreath on his grave unless somebody carries one over.

Documentation is necessary. It is not enough. At some point, a real person must carry the paperwork out to the actual ground and read the name on the grave aloud. That is the step someone needs to fund and schedule.

TWENTY-FIFTH STREET WEST

On Saturday, December 19, Old Memphis Cemetery will hold its first Wreaths Across America ceremony. Because the cemetery is legally abandoned and has no identifiable owner, Neighbors in Service sought guidance from the Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services. The Division approved the December ceremony in June. A Fourth Degree Color Guard will be there. Community presenters will be there. Wreaths will be laid by hand, and as each one goes down, someone will say that veteran’s name out loud.

Both Rutlands are buried in New Memphis.

Across the street is the half of this cemetery that has only seven veteran names on record and has never been surveyed. It is the side the ceremony was not built to reach.

Corporal Noble John Rutland has been lying there since 1974, under a stone that says CPL US MARINE CORPS, a street’s width from a color guard.

WHAT WE CAN ACTUALLY DO

I want to be careful here. It would be easy to end this by promising more than we can deliver.

The Department of Veterans Affairs will furnish a headstone or marker for the unmarked grave of an eligible veteran, regardless of how long ago they died. That matters at Memphis, because a burial ground with no owner and no maintenance fund is exactly where unmarked graves accumulate, and we should assume there are veterans out there lying under nothing at all.

Charlie Rutland is not one of them. His grave is marked. The rule is written for graves that are not, and for a grave already carrying a private stone, the government marker reaches only veterans who died on or after November 1, 1990. He died in 1979. We cannot promise him granite.

Here is what we can do.

A World War I draft registration card may survive for him, filed wherever he was living in 1918 rather than wherever he was born. If he had treatment or benefits activity with the VA, there may be administrative or medical records, subject to the rules that govern them. His death certificate has been public for years and would name his parents, his occupation, and the person who reported his death. Those are ordinary requests, and as far as we can tell, nobody has ever made one.

If the records show service, we put it on the record properly, with a source attached. That way, the badge beside his name becomes a fact, not a guess. If the records show he never served, we correct that too. Either answer is worth having. What is not worth having is what sits there now. It is a determination with nothing behind it.

My father never filed for what he was owed, and I cannot change that now. The marker benefit for an unmarked grave has no expiry. For some men, the door is still open. For the rest, the paperwork is what lasts. Getting it right is the last service we can do for them.

Before There Is No One Left to Ask

My father cannot answer a single question I have. Everyone who could have told me about the jacket is gone. I am searching in archives for what I could have learned in an afternoon at his kitchen table. I am doing it thirty years too late.

You may still have that afternoon.

If you are a veteran or the family of one, find the discharge papers now. Look in the safe deposit box, the filing cabinet, or the folder your mother kept. If you cannot find them, request them before you need them. If the answer comes back that the record is missing, know that the search has begun, not ended.

You do not have to work it out alone, and you do not need to hire a private company to begin. Manatee County Veterans Services will sit down with you at no cost, and you can schedule an appointment at 941-745-3795. They can help you request records, sort out what you are eligible for, and file the claim.

If your family has roots in the Memphis neighborhood, we want to hear from you, and we would rather hear from you than from a database. If you are descended from the Rutlands, or from anyone lying in that ground, you hold information no archive has.

If you are a neighbor with time and patience, Neighbors in Service and the Azario Genealogy Club need people for this project. Retired teachers who can run down a citation. Nurses who read handwriting nobody else can. Engineers who like a spreadsheet and a GPS coordinate.

The volunteers who surveyed these cemeteries in 1980 recorded what it took. Weeds, briars, hornets, fire ants, and stones so worn that a name took three people arguing to settle. Nothing has improved out there since. You will be trained before you touch a marker. What you need is an afternoon a month and a refusal to let a name go unread.

You can also sponsor a wreath, at seventeen dollars each, through wreathsacrossamerica.org/FL0675P. The page lets you direct yours to Old Memphis.

Donate a Wreath Today

Every wreath laid in December carries the same two words. Remember me.

Remembering requires a name. A name requires a record. And a record requires someone who cared enough to go and find it. Sometimes that happens eighty years late, sometimes from a stone and a death certificate and nothing else.

Noble Rutland was a Bradenton man his whole life. He gave the Marine Corps two years during Korea, came home, raised four children, and died at forty-three.

On December 19, when the ceremony at Old Memphis is finished, I am going to walk across 25th Street West and lay a wreath on his grave myself.

I will carry a second one for Charlie Rutland. Whether he earned it is a question I cannot answer yet.

I will lay it either way.

Share Neighbors in Service

Postscript: 8/13/26.

I wrote above that the records on Charlie Rutland were ordinary requests, and that as far as we could tell, nobody had ever made one.

Somebody made one. It took four days.

Charlie Rutland was inducted into the United States Army at Macon, Georgia, on April 7, 1918. Army serial number 2,649,225. He gave his residence as Lizella, in Bibb County, and named his sister, Hattie R. Hunter, as his next of kin. He served first with the 157th Depot Brigade, then with Company H of the 370th Infantry. He sailed from Hoboken on June 30, 1918, and came home on February 9, 1919. No wounds. Honorably discharged on demobilization, February 24, 1919.

Company H belonged to the 370th Infantry, a Black regiment descended from Illinois’s 8th Infantry. In France, the regiment served under French command and fought in the Lorraine and Oise-Aisne campaigns.

He was twenty-six years old, and he spent seven months in France.

I want to be careful with that last paragraph, because it describes a regiment and not a man. What his own records establish is that he was assigned to Company H, that he sailed on June 30, 1918, and that he came home in February 1919 without wounds. Where he stood on any given day, and what he saw there, would take a company roster or a morning report to answer. Nobody has looked yet.

He lived another sixty years after that. He came to Bradenton from Atlanta in his late seventies, died at eighty-six in a Veterans Administration Medical Center in 1979, and was buried in New Memphis Cemetery under a stone his family bought, which says nothing about any of it.

Two things about how we found him, because they are the point.

Charlie Rutland’s World War I service is documented in his Georgia World War I Statement of Service Card, Georgia Department of Archives and History

The record never depended on St. Louis alone. What we found is a Georgia World War I Statement of Service Card, compiled after the war and preserved by the Georgia Department of Archives and History, outside the federal personnel-file system altogether. My father’s personnel file cannot be located and was likely among the losses in the 1973 fire. Charlie Rutland’s service can still be read today because another archive kept its own account of him.

And the badge on his memorial was correct. The public memorial never showed the evidence behind it, and I still do not know who first applied the designation. What we know now is that it can be documented. A conclusion that happens to be right is not the same as a conclusion that has been checked, and “probably” is not what these men are owed.

His entry no longer reads service not yet documented. It reads Private Charlie Rutland, Company H, 370th Infantry, American Expeditionary Forces. We are attaching the sources to his memorial, so that the next person who looks finds the evidence and not only the badge.

I said I would carry a wreath across 25th Street West for him in December without knowing whether he had earned it.

Now I know.

A note on sources. Burial and inscription details, the Classie Williams marker, Marion Stevens’ account of how the land was conveyed, and the absence of an owner on the county tax rolls all come from Tombstone Inscriptions in Cemeteries of Manatee County, Florida, 1850–1980, compiled by volunteers of the Manasota Genealogical Society, whose summary of these cemeteries was prepared about 1980. Grave and memorial details also come from Find a Grave memorials 127971919 (Noble John Rutland) and 127971888 (Charlie Rutland). Obituaries are from the Bradenton Herald, 29 October 1974 and February 1979. Veteran counts are working figures from an ongoing Neighbors in Service and Azario Genealogy Club survey and should be read as floors rather than totals. Federal records guidance follows the National Archives and the VA National Cemetery Administration. Details concerning my father’s jacket, medals, and missions are from family recollection and obituary, and are not independently documented.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

Thank you for reading, and for your continued support. Check out our recent Community Update.

Connect & Support

🌐 Website: www.neighborsinservice.org

📬 Email: info@neighborsinservice.org

📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS

👍 Facebook: www.facebook.com/neighborsInservice/

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization

Educate • Strengthen • Honor

Folds of Honor

Educational scholarships for the families left behind.

When a service member or first responder dies in the line of duty, or comes home permanently disabled, the loss is not the end of what the family carries. A spouse who planned on two incomes now has one. A child who was going to college now has a question mark where the plan used to be.

Folds of Honor exists for that moment. Since 2007 they have awarded hundreds of thousands of educational scholarships to the spouses and children of fallen and disabled service members, and in recent years to the families of first responders as well. The name comes from the folds of the flag presented at a military funeral.

Neighbors in Service represents Folds of Honor in Manatee County.

WHY THIS PILLAR

Folds of Honor sits at the center of our Educate pillar, and it reaches into Honor as well. A scholarship is practical support: tuition covered, a degree finished, a career made possible. It is also an act of remembrance. It says that the sacrifice this family made is still being answered years after the funeral.

Our Educate pillar is built on the conviction that stability comes from tools people can use. For a surviving spouse or a service member’s child, education is the most durable tool there is.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE

Folds of Honor scholarships support the spouses and dependent children of service members and first responders who were killed or catastrophically injured in the line of duty. First responders include firefighters, law enforcement officers, paramedics, EMTs, and others whose duties routinely involve responding to emergencies, including recognized volunteer organizations.

The qualifying event is a death or a career-ending catastrophic injury. Absent that, a currently serving first responder’s family does not qualify.

Awards run up to $5,000 per academic year and apply to college, technical school, and private K-12 tuition and tutoring. Funds are paid directly to the school, not to the family.

Applications open February 1 and close March 31 each year. Recipients reapply in later years. Full eligibility requirements, required documentation, and the application are at foldsofhonor.org.

If you are a Manatee County family who might qualify, look now rather than in February. The application asks for documentation that takes time to gather, including proof of relationship and agency or medical records describing what happened.

HOW TO STAND WITH THEM

1. 🔗 Click to Donate Online:

   Donate Online

2. 📱 Scan to Donate via Mobile: Scan the official NIS-partner QR code below with your smartphone camera to access the direct giving portal:

Tell a family. The families who need these scholarships often do not know they exist, and they are rarely in a position to look for them. If you know a surviving spouse or a disabled veteran’s family in this county, point them toward the application. That single conversation may be worth more than a donation.

Watch for local events. We are developing community events in Manatee County to support Folds of Honor scholarships. Nothing is scheduled yet. When something is, our subscribers hear about it first.

WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES

Neighbors in Service accepts no donations for itself. Your gift goes directly to Folds of Honor through their own secure gateway. They process it, they receipt it, and they award it.

Stand With Us

If you are a military or first responder family in Manatee County who has lost someone or is living with a service-connected disability, there is a scholarship here for your spouse or your children. Start at foldsofhonor.org, and reach out to us if you want help thinking it through.

If you are a neighbor with the means to give, this is a direct line from your generosity to a specific child completing a specific degree. And if you would rather give your time than your money, watch this space. We will need hands when the first local event comes together.

Questions, or want to get involved? Contact Dr. Jack McGourty at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

If you are a veteran in crisis, or you are worried about one, call or text 988 and press 1. The Veterans Crisis Line is staffed around the clock. You do not need to be enrolled in VA care to use it.

Most people who lose a veteran to suicide say afterward that they saw something. A call that did not get returned. A person who stopped coming around. Something in a conversation that sat wrong and got set aside, because they did not know what to say and were afraid of making it worse.

The Fire Watch was built for that gap.

WHAT THE FIRE WATCH DOES

The Fire Watch is Florida’s first statewide community response to veteran suicide, and the model is CPR. You do not need to be a cardiologist to keep someone alive until the ambulance comes. You need to know what to look for and what to do in the next few minutes.

Their Watch Stander program trains ordinary people to recognize a veteran in crisis and guide them toward help. No clinical background. No live session. About forty-five minutes.

You don’t need to be a counselor. You need to be a connector.

WHY THIS MATTERS HERE

In its 2025 annual report, The Fire Watch identified the five Florida counties with the largest increases in veteran suicides between 2019 and 2023. Manatee County is one of them.

The same report found a 12 percent decrease in veteran suicides in counties with more Watch Standers, compared with a 2 percent decrease in counties with fewer. Their conclusion was that the program needs to expand into high-risk regions of the state.

We live in one.

WHY THIS PILLAR

The Fire Watch anchors our Strengthen pillar. Every Watch Stander is a neighbor who has been made ready, and a community with enough of them stops depending on whether a veteran happens to reach the right professional at the right moment.

Knights of Columbus San Damiano Assembly 3192 became the first Knights assembly in Florida to earn Veteran Safe Place Certification, with more than fifty-five trained Watch Standers. That is what this looks like when a single organization decides to do it.

HOW TO STAND WITH THEM

Take the training. Free, self-paced, about forty-five minutes, in two videos. The first covers what veterans want you to understand about suicide risk. The second teaches a practical framework for recognizing warning signs, asking directly, and connecting someone to help. You finish by signing a pledge to stand watch and receive access to a statewide directory of veteran support services.

Select Veteran/Active Duty or Civilian when you register.

Start Watch Stander Training

Bring the training to your group. If your parish, HOA, civic group, employer, or organization wants to host a session, we can connect you with The Fire Watch Regional Program Director serving the Manatee and Sarasota area.

[Button: Email Us to Get Started]

Email Us to Get Started

Give. The Fire Watch depends on community support to train Watch Standers, expand into counties like ours, and sustain the data work that tracks these trends across Florida.

[Button: Give to The Fire Watch]

Give to The Fire Watch

WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES

Neighbors in Service accepts no donations for itself. Your gift goes directly to The Fire Watch through their own secure gateway. They process it, they receipt it, and they train with it.

Stand With Us

If you are a veteran and you are struggling, you are not a burden and you are not beyond reach. Call or text 988 and press 1. If that feels like too much right now, tell one person. Manatee County Veterans Services can also help you find your way to care at 941-745-3795.

If you are a neighbor, forty-five minutes is the entire ask. You will not become a counselor and nobody expects you to. You will become someone who notices, and who knows what to say next. In a county the data has already flagged, that is not a small thing to be.

Questions, or want to bring training to your organization? Contact Dr. Jack McGourty at drjack@neighborsinservice.org.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

There is a lot in motion this month. On August 11, we kick off a new project with the Azario Genealogy Club to find and record every local veteran's story. Our Wreaths Across America campaign is well underway across a growing network of local cemeteries, with more than 1,150 wreaths already sponsored at Mansion Memorial Park alone. And we are soft launching our new mentoring partnership with American Corporate Partners, opening doors for veterans and military spouses building their next careers. Three efforts, all getting off the ground at once, and every one of them is a way to serve the people who served. Here is where things stand.

Azario Flag Placement, July 3, 2026

Share Neighbors in Service

Check the Team Reach Events Calendar for sign-ups and updates. Not yet on Team Reach? Join today using code AZNIS4VETS.

Honoring Our Local Veterans

For Neighbors in Service, Wreaths Across America was never only about one December morning. A wreath laid on a grave is a beautiful thing. But a moment passes. What we are building around it is meant to last: a fuller way of honoring the veterans who rest in our local cemeteries, so their service is remembered all year and, just as important, preserved.

We have come to think of it as honoring them in full. It has four parts.

The first is their story. Before a veteran can be honored by name, someone has to know the name. That is where our new project with the Azario Genealogy Club comes in, and it is a real gift to the Wreaths Across America effort. Together we are setting out to make sure every known veteran buried in Manatee County is memorialized on Find a Grave, with a photograph of their headstone. Find a Grave is the largest volunteer-built collection of cemetery records anywhere, and families and researchers lean on it every day. When a veteran’s record is missing or has no photo, that veteran is easy to pass by. This work closes the gap, one name at a time, and it keeps the story behind the stone from slipping away.

The project begins this month, and everyone is welcome:

• When: Tuesday, August 11, at 7:00 PM

• Where: Wellness Center Lanai

• No experience needed. If you can take a photo and follow a few simple steps, you can help.

To take part, join the Azario Genealogy Club on Team Reach with code FamTree25, then RSVP on their calendar for the August 11 meeting.

The second part is their days. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, we place flags to honor these veterans and the community that remembers them. A flag at a grave, a flag at our gates. Small gestures, and they carry the same message a wreath does: you are not forgotten.

The third is their resting place. In our older, historic cemeteries especially, time wears names off stone. Weather and neglect, and sometimes worse, leave markers cracked, sunken, and unreadable. Looking ahead, we hope to work alongside volunteers and organizations who clean and restore these headstones, giving extra attention to the sites that need it most, so a name carved a hundred years ago can be read once more.

And the fourth is the wreath itself. In December we return to where it began, with a wreath on every grave we can reach. This year that means Mansion Memorial Park in Ellenton and, for the first time, Historic Old Memphis Cemetery in Palmetto.

Story, flag, stone, wreath. Together they add up to something closer to the honor these men and women earned.

A quick word on where things stand. This year our wreath effort reaches well beyond a single cemetery. Across our growing 2026 network of local cemeteries, we are working alongside community groups and volunteers to honor more than 3,000 documented veterans. Old Memphis Cemetery is now fully funded, with a wreath for every veteran resting there. Our focus now is Mansion Memorial Park, our anchor site, where more than 1,150 wreaths have been sponsored, and more are still needed. If you are able to sponsor a wreath this year, Mansion is where it will do the most good. Every wreath is $17, and every one says the same two words: Remember me.

Sponsor A Wreath Today

Preparing for the Next Mission

We have seen up close what a good mentor can do. When our Everyday Money program brought veterans on fixed incomes together with a team of volunteer mentors this spring, the change did not come from a slide deck. It came from a knowledgeable neighbor sitting down beside someone, month after month, and helping them find their footing. One veteran cut a bill in half. Another built a plan to pay down debt. That is mentoring, and it works.

Now we are carrying that same belief into a new arena, the career transition. Neighbors in Service is proud to welcome American Corporate Partners, or ACP, as our Educate Pillar partner.

ACP is a platinum-rated national nonprofit that has connected more than 42,000 post-9/11 veterans and military spouses with professional mentors since 2008. This past year, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society recognized ACP with its 2025 Citizen Honors Award for service to the military and veteran community. The model is simple. A mentor gives one hour a month for one year, almost always over Zoom or Teams, walking alongside a veteran or military spouse through career planning, resume work, interview prep, and professional networking. ACP also runs a track for veterans and spouses who want to start or grow a business of their own. Across all of it, ACP handles the matching, the vetting, and the monthly support. The mentor shows up and shares what they know.

Here is what makes this a real expansion of our reach. Our earlier mentoring was hands-on and close to home. ACP is national and virtual, and that opens the door both ways. A professional here in our community can mentor a veteran or spouse anywhere in the country. And a veteran or military spouse in our own neighborhood can be matched with a mentor from one of ACP’s corporate partners, companies like Amazon, USAA, and Lockheed Martin. Local roots, national reach.

I will add a personal note. I mentor through ACP myself, and that entrepreneurship track is usually where I am matched. I sit with veterans and spouses who brought the discipline and drive of their service into a venture of their own and needed an experienced sounding board. Watching that click is why I keep doing it. The numbers bear it out too. ACP reports a 97% veteran satisfaction rate, an 80% one-year job retention rate, and an average salary increase of about $40,000 for placed veterans.

One thing is worth clearing up, because it keeps a lot of good people from raising their hand. You do not have to be a veteran to mentor. Only about one in three ACP mentors served in the military. What you need is professional knowledge, real interest in someone’s success, and the willingness to stay the course for a year.

If you are a veteran or a military spouse making the move into civilian work, or looking to start or grow a business of your own, this is a mentor in your corner, at no cost to you. If you are a professional, still active in your field or recently retired, your experience can change the direction of someone’s career. Either way, we would be glad to help you take the next step. If you are ready to become a mentor, the button below will take you straight to the ACP application. You do not have to be a veteran, and it is about an hour a month. If you are a veteran or spouse looking to be matched with a mentor, or you just have questions, email me at drjack@neighborsinservice.org, and I will help you connect.

Apply to Mentor a Veteran

We will also host an ACP information session in October to walk through how the program works and answer your questions. The date is still being set, so watch the calendar and your Team Reach updates.

For more on why this kind of mentoring matters, read this month’s Insights article on mentorship.

Walk, Run, Remember

Our work with the Azario Run/Walk Club keeps growing. The SRQ Vets Memorial Day 5K Hike in Sarasota is already an annual event for us, one we return to each year. Now we are building on it. We want to take something this community already loves, moving together, and use it to rally behind the organizations that serve our veterans and first responders. The evolving focus of that effort is Tunnel to Towers.

The first step is already on the calendar. On Saturday, September 12, a group of us will make the road trip to Fort Myers for the Tunnel to Towers 5K, held on the 25th anniversary of September 11. We run, and we walk to honor the heroes of that day and the families it left behind. If you have never done one of these, this is a good one to start with, and you will not be doing it alone.

Why Tunnel to Towers. The foundation was born out of 9/11, and its mission has grown into something remarkable: mortgage-free homes for Gold Star and fallen first responder families, specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders, and a national effort to end veteran homelessness.

That last part is happening in our own backyard. Tunnel to Towers is building the Bradenton Veterans Village, a new campus on 8.7 acres donated by Manatee County. It is the foundation’s second location in Florida and its first dedicated campus built from the ground up. When finished, it will include an 84-unit apartment complex, an on-site center for supportive services, and a community of Comfort Homes, all meant to help veterans who have faced homelessness find stable ground. Supporting Tunnel to Towers is not an abstract cause here. It is a neighbor down the road.

We are also in early conversations about bringing a Tunnel to Towers race to the Lakewood Ranch and Bradenton area in 2027. There is a long way to go before that is real, but the interest is there, and the reason is close to home.

For now, the invitation is simple. If you like to run or walk, or you just want to be part of something that matters, join the Azario Run/Walk Club on Team Reach with code EARWC24 and come with us to Fort Myers. Watch the calendar and your Team Reach updates for registration and carpool details. Walk, run, remember. Stronger together.

Standing With SRQ Vets

Neighbors in Service is a proud advocate for SRQ Vets, a local organization that moves fast when a veteran in Sarasota, Manatee, or DeSoto County hits a hard patch. Their help is practical and immediate. A vehicle for a family that lost theirs. Accessible steps built by their Ramp Champs so a veteran’s widow can get in and out of her own home. Transportation and emergency support for veterans starting over. Real needs, met quickly.

Our connection with SRQ Vets runs through that Memorial Day hike, the one nearly 40 of us joined this year. It is one of the most popular events we host, and we plan to be there every year.

If you want to support their work and enjoy a great night out doing it, put Hibachi for Heroes on your calendar. It is their inaugural fundraising dinner on Saturday, November 7, an outdoor hibachi experience with food and entertainment, and space is limited. Reserve early at Hibachi.SRQVets.org.

Save the Date: Marine Corps Birthday Ball

One of our own neighbors, Edward Valdez, runs Valdez Veterans Alliance Services and started its Marine Corps Birthday Ball, now an annual event. Mark your calendar for Saturday, November 14, at 6:00 PM at the Palmetto Marriott. It is a community evening; everyone is welcome, and this year’s proceeds support Our Next Mission and its work housing disabled and at-risk veterans. Tickets and sponsorships are available now at vvaservices.org/events. We will keep this one on your radar between now and November.

Stay Connected

Two easy ways to be part of what comes next.

Azario neighbors, join us on Team Reach. This is where it all happens. You will get weekly notice of what is coming up, and it is where you sign up for events, from the genealogy kickoff to flag placements to the road trip to Fort Myers. If you want to show up and lend a hand, this is the channel to be on. Use code AZNIS4VETS.

Share Neighbors in Service

Help us grow the circle. You are already reading this, so you are already with us. The best thing you can do now is bring someone else along. Forward this update to a neighbor and invite them to subscribe, and follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/neighborsInservice, then share a post now and then. Every new person is one more neighbor ready to stand with our veterans, military families, and first responders.

You can always reach us directly at drjack@neighborsinservice.org with a question or an idea.

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) Florida Nonprofit (EIN: 33-1691201). Educate · Strengthen · Honor. 🌐 www.neighborsinservice.org | 📧 info@neighborsinservice.org | 📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS | 👍 facebook.com/neighborsInservice

Editor’s Note: This article explores why mentorship is so critical for veterans navigating civilian transitions. To put these concepts into immediate action, Neighbors in Service has partnered with American Corporate Partners (ACP). You can find direct, trackable links to apply for a professional mentor, volunteer as a mentor, or donate to their mission on our new Educate Pillar Resource Page.

Share Neighbors in Service

There is a moment that comes for nearly every veteran, and it arrives without warning.

It is not the day of discharge. That day brings paperwork, a ceremony, and the steady pace of logistics. The moment I am describing comes later. Sometimes it arrives weeks after leaving, sometimes months. The structure that organized every hour of every day simply stops. There is no formation. No mission brief. No chain of command telling you where to be or what matters. Instead, you wake up to an ordinary morning and a life that is now yours to shape.

Most veterans will tell you they were not prepared for that morning.

The military is exceptional at building people. It instills discipline, resilience, and the ability to perform under pressure. It also gives a sense of purpose that many civilians spend a lifetime searching for. What it does not build is the capacity to navigate a world without its structure. The military has no reason to teach that. Veterans who thrive inside that system can feel genuinely lost outside it. This is not because something is wrong with them. The transition strips away the very architecture that made them effective.

And the transition is not one thing. It arrives in different forms at different stages of a veteran’s life.

For the veteran leaving active duty in their thirties, it is the challenge of translating a military career into civilian language — of walking into a room where no one knows what your rank meant, what your unit accomplished, or why the leadership you demonstrated under fire should matter to a hiring manager reviewing a resume.

For the veteran who decides to build something of their own — to take the discipline and mission orientation of service and direct it toward a venture — it is the challenge of operating without orders, without a clear chain of command, and without the institutional support that military life provides. The skills transfer. The context does not.

For the veteran who reaches retirement age with a fixed income and a drawer full of benefits paperwork, the challenge is quieter. After a lifetime of handling things independently, they must now navigate a financial and bureaucratic landscape that was not designed with them in mind. Often, this happens alone at a kitchen table, late at night, unsure who to call for help.

Three transitions. Three distinct sets of pressures. And in each one, the same underlying condition: a capable, resourceful person trying to see a path that is genuinely difficult to see from where they are standing.

“That is not a character problem. It is a positioning problem.”

And it is exactly the kind of problem a mentor is built to solve.

What a Mentor Sees That the Veteran Cannot

Darnell had been out for three years when he decided to build something.

He had the discipline. He had the mission orientation. He had spent a decade leading teams under pressure, making decisions with incomplete information, and holding people together when the situation was difficult. By every reasonable measure, he was prepared.

What he was not prepared for was how much of his decision-making had depended, without his realizing it, on the structure around him. In the military, the parameters of a problem were defined before he entered the room. The mission was given. The resources were allocated. His job was execution, adaptation, and leadership within a known frame.

Building a venture removed the frame entirely.

Darnell made decisions. Good ones, often. He talked to customers, refined his thinking, and adjusted when the evidence pointed in a new direction. But a mentor watching from the outside noticed something Darnell could not see from the inside: every time the path forward required a firm commitment to a specific customer segment, Darnell reframed the decision as a question of timing. Not yet. More data first. One more round of conversations.

“The pivots felt strategic. The pattern was avoidance.”

This is not a failure of character or discipline. It is what happens when a capable person operates inside a frame they cannot see. The decisions made sense individually. The shape they made together only became visible from the outside. Darnell’s mentor did not have more information than Darnell did. He had a different position. He could hold the whole arc in view.

That is the true value of a mentor: not to provide answers the veteran does not have, but to stand somewhere the veteran cannot stand and describe what the view looks like from there. What that view reveals depends on where the veteran is in the transition.

Entering the civilian workforce. The primary challenge here is translation. The veteran knows what they accomplished, but the civilian world lacks the language for it. A career mentor helps translate military leadership into terms a hiring manager understands — making visible the value that was always there but could not be seen from inside the veteran’s frame. Career mentors matched through our partners at ACP bring exactly this kind of positioned perspective.

Building a venture. Here the challenge is structure. The military trains people to execute within clear boundaries; entrepreneurship asks the founder to build those boundaries from scratch. A business mentor stands outside the daily decisions to name patterns — like reframing commitment as a timing question — before they compound into something harder to unwind.

Retiring on a fixed income. This challenge is quieter. After a lifetime of self-reliance, navigating benefits, fixed budgets, and paperwork late at night can feel isolating. NIS Money Check-In Partners bring financial knowledge and local patience to help veterans secure what they have already earned — showing up monthly, asking what happened, and staying in the room when the answer is complicated.

Renée saw this from both sides. She had made the transition herself, moving from a career in military institutions to the open work of building something new. She knew what it felt like to be capable but unable to see her own perspective. When she met with a veteran facing the same change, she did not rely on a framework. She relied on memory. That kind of knowing is different, and veterans often recognize it right away.

“She did not rely on a framework. She relied on memory.”

What Our Community Already Holds

The knowledge is here. The question is whether we put it to work.

There is an assumption that runs through most conversations about veteran support, and it is worth naming directly. It is the assumption that helping a veteran means having served yourself. Only someone who has worn the uniform can understand what a veteran is carrying or offer something useful to the transition.

That assumption is understandable. It is also too narrow and leaves a great deal of knowledge unused.

Think about who lives in this community. Retired accountants and financial planners who have spent careers helping families navigate exactly the pressures a veteran on a fixed income is facing right now. Business owners who built something from nothing and know what the early disorienting days of a venture actually feel like. HR professionals and hiring managers who have sat across from hundreds of candidates and know exactly how a resume lands, and how to close the gap between what someone has done and how it reads on paper. People who have spent decades managing on a modest income and came out the other side knowing things they wish someone had told them earlier.

None of that requires a uniform. All of it is useful.

The mentor role is open to anyone with relevant knowledge and a genuine commitment to show up. It is not a caseload, a credential, or a formal commitment. What it asks is smaller and more specific: relevant knowledge, the willingness to show up consistently, and enough patience to let the veteran lead the conversation at their own pace.

That last part matters. Veterans are not passive recipients of help. They are resourceful, determined people who have operated in some of the most demanding environments imaginable. What many of them need is not someone to solve the problem. It is someone to stand outside the frame with them long enough to make the path visible. When that happens, the veteran does the work. The mentor makes it possible to see where to begin.

The commitment is smaller than most people expect. Fifteen to twenty minutes a month for a Money Check-In Partner. A monthly call for someone navigating a career transition. A conversation over coffee for a veteran founder who needs someone to hold the arc of their decisions in view. These are not large asks. They are, for the veteran on the other side of the table, often the difference between moving forward and staying stuck.

If you have knowledge worth sharing and the willingness to return next month, this community has a place for you. The veterans here earned that support. They are still waiting for it to find them.

The Partnership That Makes It Possible

No mentor works alone. The best ones know exactly who to call.

A mentor is not a one-person system. That is worth saying clearly because the weight of what veterans carry can make the role feel larger than it is, and that feeling can stop good people from stepping forward.

The VA, Manatee County Veterans Services, the American Corporate Partners network, and the veteran-serving organizations embedded in this community exist precisely because some needs are bigger than a single conversation can address. A benefits dispute that has been running for two years needs a VSO counselor, not a Money Check-In Partner. A legal situation needs an attorney. A mental health crisis needs a clinician. These are not failures of the mentoring relationship. They are the moments when a good mentor does one of the most important things they can do: recognize the boundary of their role and walk the veteran to the right door.

“That handoff is not a limitation. It is a skill.”

And it is one of the things NIS works to build into every mentoring relationship from the beginning. Partners learn which resources exist, what each one can actually deliver, and how to help a veteran access them without getting lost in the process. The mentor does not need to know everything. They need to know enough, and to know who knows the rest.

Renée learned this the same way she learned most things: by getting it wrong first. Early in her work with transitioning veterans, she held on to problems longer than she should have, convinced that letting go meant letting down. What she came to understand was that the veteran’s trust in her was the asset worth protecting. Using it to make a warm introduction to someone better positioned to help was not a retreat. It was the relationship working exactly as it should.

The ecosystem around this community is genuinely strong. What it has lacked, in many cases, is the connective tissue: a knowledgeable neighbor who knows the veteran by name, understands their situation, and can walk alongside them from the kitchen table conversation to the right resource and back again. That is what NIS is building. Not a replacement for the professional system. A bridge into it.

The Invitation

The veterans in this community did not arrive here asking for help. That is not how most of them are built. They arrived as neighbors, as residents, as people who spent careers solving problems quietly and independently. Many of them are still doing that, at kitchen tables and in spare bedrooms, with paperwork and decisions that would be easier with one knowledgeable person in their corner.

That person could be you.

Not because you have all the answers. Not because you have worn the uniform or navigated every transition a veteran faces. Because you have something useful, and the willingness to show up with it consistently, and enough patience to let the relationship do its work over time.

Renée used to say that the most important thing she brought to any mentoring conversation was not what she knew. It was that she came back. The veteran across the table had heard plenty of good advice that went nowhere. What they had rarely experienced was someone returning the following month, asking what had happened, and staying in the room when the answer was complicated.

That is the offer NIS is making to this community. Not a program. Not a commitment that will overwhelm your schedule. A chance to put what you already hold in the service of someone who earned it, in a community that is building the infrastructure to make that connection possible and to keep it strong.

If you are a veteran who has been navigating this alone, you do not have to do so. Reach out to drjack@neighborsinservice.org and tell us where you are in the transition. We will take it from there.

If you are a community member with knowledge worth sharing, we want to hear from you at the same address. The match between mentor and veteran is always a conversation, never an assignment. But it starts with you deciding that what you know is worth offering.

The transitions veterans face are real. The isolation that surrounds those transitions is not inevitable. This community has what it takes to change that. The question is whether we will choose to.

© 2026 Neighbors in Service

Thank you for reading and for your continued support! Check out our recent Community Update.

Connect & Support

🌐 Website: www.neighborsinservice.org

📬 Email: info@neighborsinservice.org

📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS

👍 Facebook: www.facebook.com/neighborsInservice/

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 33-1691201).

Educate • Strengthen • Honor

This Fourth of July is unlike any in our lifetimes — America’s 250th. At Neighbors in Service, we mark it the way we mark every season of remembrance: by showing up. This Independence Day edition leads with the flags rising at Azario’s entrances, then carries into the year-round work of honoring those who served — across our region’s cemeteries, in the records that keep their names, and alongside the neighbors who walk, run, and gather with us.

Raising the Flags at Azario

Before there was a program, there were neighbors. From 2022 through 2024, Karen Hernandez and the volunteers of the Azario Sunshine Committee lined our community’s entrances with American flags for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day — a small, faithful act that turned an ordinary drive home into a moment of remembrance.

This Independence Day, Neighbors in Service is proud to carry that tradition forward — and to grow it. More than 30 Azario neighbors have volunteered to place and retrieve the flags this Fourth of July, and going forward NIS will organize the displays across all three holidays. In 2026, those flags fly on a Fourth of July unlike any in our lifetimes — the nation’s 250th.

• Placement: Friday, July 3

• Retrieval: Monday, July 6

And on the Fourth itself, come say hello: NIS will have a table on the Veranda behind the Wellness Center, right alongside the Azario festivities and the Bahama Bar & Pool. Stop by, meet the team, and learn how to get involved.

A flag at the gate is, at heart, the same gesture as a wreath on a grave: a way of saying you are not forgotten. Thank you to everyone raising the colors with us this weekend — and to Karen Hernandez and the Sunshine Committee, for starting it all.

Not yet on Team Reach? Join with code AZNIS4VETS to stay connected with NIS events and volunteer opportunities.

Share Neighbors in Service

Old Memphis Cemetery Joins Our Mission

We are honored to share a milestone: Neighbors in Service has added Old Memphis Cemetery in Palmetto to the cemeteries we lead and sponsor through Wreaths Across America. The addition has been approved by the State, and we look forward to honoring the veterans who rest in this special, historic place.

Old Memphis is sacred ground. Platted in 1904 in one of the area’s historically Black neighborhoods, it is the resting place of farming families and of 46 veterans who served from the World Wars through Korea and Vietnam. This spring it was vandalized — and the community answered. Over Memorial Day weekend, more than a hundred neighbors came out to clean the stones and place flags, and the county committed funding for security and restoration. This December, NIS will bring Wreaths Across America to Old Memphis for the very first time — so that on December 19, these soldiers, too, are remembered by name.

Old Memphis joins Mansion Memorial Park in Ellenton, the anchor of our effort and the resting place of roughly 1,700 veterans. We are grateful to share that more than 1,000 wreaths have already been donated for Mansion — and our goal is to reach all 1,700, so that no veteran there goes unremembered. Beyond these two, NIS continues to work alongside local organizations across Manatee and Sarasota counties, with a long-term vision of honoring every veteran in every private and historic cemetery in our region.

Sponsor a wreath through our NIS page: wreathsacrossamerica.org/FL0675P

Remembering Them by Name

Honoring a veteran begins with knowing their name — and this summer, the Azario Genealogy Club, led by Lauren Quinn, is taking up that work alongside Neighbors in Service.

In support of the NIS Wreaths Across America campaign, the club will help ensure that every veteran laid to rest in our local cemeteries is properly recognized on Find a Grave. Beginning in August, volunteers will update memorial records, create memorials for veterans who are not yet listed, and upload photographs of grave sites and headstones whenever possible.

Find a Grave is a free, volunteer-supported website that allows people to locate the burial places of family members, friends, veterans, and notable individuals. As the world’s largest online collection of cemetery records and memorials, it serves as an invaluable resource for genealogy, historical research, and preserving the stories of those who came before us.

By improving these records, we not only support Wreaths Across America but also create a lasting tribute that makes it easier for families, historians, and future generations to find and honor the service of our nation’s veterans.

Interested in helping? The Azario Genealogy Club welcomes new members — join on Team Reach with code FamTree25.

Azario Run/Walk Club — Stronger Together

In May, the Azario Run/Walk Club took its first step beyond our own borders. Nearly 40 Azarians laced up and joined the 11th Annual SRQ Vets Memorial Hike — our first club event outside Azario, and a powerful show of what this community can do when it moves together.

The next adventure is bigger still. On Saturday, September 12, 2026, Neighbors in Service and the Azario Run/Walk Club will travel to Fort Myers for the Tunnel to Towers 5K Run & Walk, held at Florida Southwestern State College (8099 College Parkway) at 7:45 AM. 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of September 11 — and we will run and walk to honor the heroes and legacy that inspired the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

Watch for registration and carpool details from NIS and the Azario Run/Walk Club. We are also exploring ways to work alongside Tunnel to Towers on future races closer to home. Walk. Run. Remember. — Stronger Together.

Save the Date — VVAS Marine Corps Birthday Ball

Mark your calendars for Saturday, November 14, 2026: Valdez Veterans Alliance Services (VVAS) hosts its 4th Annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball & Fundraiser at the Palmetto Marriott Resort & Spa, celebrating 251 years of Marine Corps tradition. This year’s beneficiary is Our Next Mission, which provides safe, accessible housing for disabled and at-risk veterans.

A community event — everyone welcome. The evening features the official Marine Corps Birthday Ceremony, reception and dinner, live and silent auctions, raffle baskets, and live entertainment by the Jesse Daniels Band, with Melinda Drake singing the National Anthem. Tickets are $350 per person; black tie / dress blues encouraged. Sponsorships are also available.

Tickets & sponsorships: vvaservices.org/events

NIS on Substack

Neighbors in Service publishes on Substack twice a month — community updates on the first, and in-depth articles mid-month — on topics that matter to our veterans, military families, first responders, and community supporters.

This past month’s article, A Flag in Summer, a Wreath in Winter, told the story behind our Honor pillar: why we raise flags in the warm months and lay wreaths in the cold ones, and how a tradition started by neighbors became a regional mission. If you missed it, it’s a fitting read for the Fourth.

New on Substack — Our Honor Pillar Partners. Right on our home page, you’ll now find our Honor Pillar Partners: vetted, direct pathways to support Wreaths Across America (Mansion Memorial Park and Old Memphis Cemetery) and Folds of Honor. Every link and QR code routes straight to each organization’s own secure donation page — Neighbors in Service never collects or holds funds, so 100% of your gift reaches the cause.

Follow us on Substack so you do not miss a post.

Share Neighbors in Service

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) Florida Nonprofit (EIN: 33-1691201) — Educate · Strengthen · Honor 🌐 www.neighborsinservice.org | 📧 info@neighborsinservice.org | 📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS | 👍 facebook.com/neighborsinservice

Sunday, June 14, 2026 — Flag Day

Today, we mark Flag Day, the birthday of the Stars and Stripes, first adopted on this date in 1777. In just a few weeks, that same flag will fly over a Fourth of July unlike any in our lifetimes — America’s 250th. It feels like the right morning to tell you why Neighbors in Service does the work it does.

Less than twenty minutes from Lakewood Ranch, more than 1,700 veterans rest at Mansion Memorial Park in Ellenton — neighbors who once served for all of us. Most days, no one passes their graves. That simple fact is the reason Neighbors in Service exists, and it sits at the heart of what we call our Honor pillar: the belief that remembrance is not a single annual ceremony, but a promise we keep season after season.

In 2026 that promise carries extra weight. The nation turns 250. And Wreaths Across America — the program at the center of our December work — has chosen a fitting theme for the year: Remember Me. Two quiet words that ask something enormous of us: not to honor “the troops” as a faceless mass, but to remember the individual — the name, the family, the story behind every grave.

This is how we try to keep that promise: with a flag in the warm months, and a wreath in the cold one.

An old American habit

Decorating the graves of the dead is older than the country itself; the practice of laying flowers on graves dates back to Roman times. But the American version was born from our hardest chapter. In the years after the Civil War, communities North and South began gathering each spring to tend soldiers’ graves with flowers and small flags.

In 1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic made it official, calling on the nation to set aside May 30 to decorate the graves of the war dead with “the choicest flowers of springtime.” The day became known as Decoration Day. One account traces the whole idea to a general’s wife who, visiting a Virginia cemetery, was moved by the little flags and faded flowers left on the graves of the fallen — flags and flowers, side by side, from the very beginning.

The day we now call Memorial Day grew out of that habit. After World War I it came to honor the fallen of every American war, and in 1971 it became a national holiday. But the instinct underneath it never changed: a grave should not go unmarked, and a name should not go unspoken.

Flags in the warm months

We carry that instinct into summer — and here, too, we are building on something a neighbor started. From 2022 through 2024, Karen Hernandez and the volunteers of the Azario Sunshine Committee lined the community’s entrances with American flags for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day. It was a small, faithful act, the kind that turns an ordinary drive home into a moment of remembrance. Neighbors in Service is carrying that tradition forward — and growing it. More than 25 Azario neighbors have already volunteered to place and retrieve the flags for this Fourth of July, and NIS will organize the displays for all three holidays.

In 2026, those flags will fly on a Fourth of July unlike any in our lifetimes — the nation’s 250th. And the hope is that this is only a beginning: that in time we move beyond our own entrances and into the community’s observances themselves — Memorial Day especially, and the December wreath-laying. Because a flag at the gate and a wreath on a grave are, at heart, the same gesture: a way of saying you are not forgotten.

Before there was a program, there were neighbors. Thank you, Karen Hernandez and the Sunshine Committee, for starting it all.

Wreaths in December

The winter half of the promise has a remarkable origin. In 1992, a Maine wreath maker named Morrill Worcester found himself with about 5,000 leftover wreaths at the end of the holiday season. Remembering a boyhood trip to Arlington National Cemetery, he arranged to lay them on graves in one of its older, less-visited sections. He did this quietly for more than a decade — until a photograph of those wreaths under snow circulated online in 2005, and the country took notice. Wreaths Across America became a nonprofit in 2007, carrying a year-round mission to remember the fallen, honor those who serve, and teach the next generation the value of freedom. Today, wreaths are laid at thousands of locations every December.

Why these cemeteries

Sarasota National Cemetery, which is home to more than 24,000 veterans, is beautifully maintained and already participates in Wreaths Across America. But it is the exception. Spread across Manatee and Sarasota counties are more than 100 private, community, and historic cemeteries, together the resting place of over 13,000 documented veterans — and most of them lie outside any coordinated program. No federal upkeep, no honor guard, sometimes no visitors at all. Those are the graves Neighbors in Service set out to reach.

Heroic wreath efforts already happen in pockets of our region. In Parrish, the Elks of Lodge 2889 have brought Wreaths Across America to the Parrish Cemetery two years running — 101 veterans rest there, the oldest a soldier of the Third Seminole War — and this year they are extending it to nearby Fortner Cemetery. Neighbors in Service will stand alongside them, helping provide volunteers for their ceremonies. What our region has never had is anyone working to knit these scattered efforts into a single whole. That is the gap NIS is stepping into.

Mansion Memorial Park, the resting place of roughly 1,700 veterans, remains the anchor of our effort — and it already has a proud history here. The tradition began in 2019, when Cookie Agan of American Legion Auxiliary Unit 325 in Ellenton brought Wreaths Across America to the park; it became the program’s 101st site, and 450 wreaths were laid that first December. This year’s ceremony, on December 19, will be the eighth, and Neighbors in Service is honored to help lead it. But this year we are widening that circle of honor — with the long view set on every private and historic cemetery in both counties.

No place makes that case more plainly than Old Memphis Cemetery in Palmetto. Platted in 1904 in one of the area’s historically Black neighborhoods, it became the resting place of farming families — and of veterans, Black soldiers who served from the World Wars through Korea and Vietnam. By 1977 it was full, and over the decades that followed, time wore the names off many of the stones. This spring, the cemetery was vandalized — graves broken, markers defaced. And here is the part worth holding onto: Manatee County answered. Over Memorial Day weekend, more than a hundred neighbors came out to clean the stones and place flags on the graves of those soldiers.

Some of those markers no longer carry a readable name. That is exactly why this work matters — and exactly what Remember Me asks of us. This December, having received permission to honor those who rest there, Neighbors in Service will bring Wreaths Across America to Old Memphis for the very first time — so that on December 19, these soldiers, too, are remembered by name.

This December, Neighbors in Service helps lead Mansion’s eighth wreath ceremony — and, for the first time, carries that honor to the forgotten veterans of Old Memphis.

The promise we keep

Two hundred and fifty years of Americans served so that we could live the way we do. The least we can do is remember them by name. On National Wreaths Across America Day — Saturday, December 19, 2026 — Neighbors in Service will work toward a wreath on every veteran’s grave at Mansion Memorial Park, and toward the day when no veteran in our region rests forgotten.

You can help, and you needn’t wait until December. This Fourth of July, come out to Azario and stand with your neighbors as they raise the flags — a small act of honor anyone is welcome to share. And when the year turns cold, sponsor a wreath at wreathsacrossamerica.org/FL0675P. Every flag, and every wreath, is a name remembered.

While you are here, please take a moment to read our recent article recognizing the vital importance of PTSD Awareness Month.

Share Neighbors in Service

Thank you for reading and for your continued support!

Connect & Support

🌐 Website: www.neighborsinservice.org

📬 Email: info@neighborsinservice.org

📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS

👍 Facebook: www.facebook.com/neighborsInservice/

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 33-1691201).

Educate • Strengthen • Honor

There is a particular kind of quiet that settles in about a year after the crisis passes.

The casseroles stopped arriving months ago. The phone calls thinned out. The friends who showed up in the first hard weeks have, understandably, returned to their own lives. And the veteran who once stood at the edge of something terrible — who was noticed, reached, and pulled back — now sits at a kitchen table on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, and the house is silent.

This is the part nobody warns you about. Not the emergency. The aftermath.

We wrote in our last letter about Standing Watch — about how a trained neighbor can recognize a veteran in crisis and guide them toward help before the worst happens. That work is urgent, and it saves lives. But preventing a death is the floor, not the ceiling. Keeping someone alive on Monday means very little if we abandon them to the silence of every Tuesday that follows. The watch doesn’t end when the immediate danger lifts. In many ways, that’s when the longer, quieter, more human work begins.

June is PTSD Awareness Month. We’d like to spend it moving past awareness and toward something more useful: understanding, and then accompaniment.

Share

What We Talk About When We Talk About PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder carries a heavy reputation, much of it earned in the wrong way. Popular culture has handed us a caricature — the volatile veteran, the ticking time bomb, the one who can never quite come home. It’s a story that frightens people, and frightened people keep their distance. Which is precisely the opposite of what healing requires.

So let’s replace the caricature with what the research actually shows.

PTSD is real, and those who served carry it more often than the rest of us do. At any given time, about one in twenty veterans is living with it — and among those who saw the heaviest fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, closer to one in seven. It doesn’t fall evenly. Younger veterans bear more of it, as do women who served and those already reaching out to the VA for help. But these aren’t really numbers. Behind every one of them is a person who wakes up carrying something most of us were spared — a weight that never shows on the outside.

But here is what the caricature gets catastrophically wrong. PTSD is not a character flaw, and it is not a life sentence. It is an injury — a wound the mind sustains when it survives something the body was never built to absorb. When a soldier shatters a leg, we don’t call them broken beyond repair. We set the bone, we support the healing, and we walk alongside the recovery. The wounds we cannot see deserve no less.

PTSD is not a character flaw, and it is not a life sentence. It is an injury.

The Statistic That Changes Everything

If you take one number away from this letter, let it be this one.

For more than a decade, the most comprehensive long-term study of American veterans has been asking a quiet, almost startling question: Did anything good grow out of what you endured? When researchers first asked, about half of those who had lived through trauma said yes — they could name real, lasting growth on the far side of it. Ask the same question of veterans today, and that number has climbed to nearly two in three. And among those carrying the heaviest burden — the veterans struggling with PTSD itself — it runs higher still: roughly seven in ten a decade ago, and today, nearly nine in ten.

Read that again, because it overturns nearly everything the caricature taught us. The veterans struggling most with trauma were the most likely to report that the struggle had reshaped them in profound and positive ways: deeper relationships, renewed purpose, a hard-won clarity about what actually matters.

Researchers call this post-traumatic growth. It does not erase the pain, and it is not the same as “getting over it.” It is something stranger and more hopeful — the capacity of a person to be remade, rather than merely damaged, by what they’ve survived. And it is not the rare exception we’ve been led to expect. Most veterans turn out to be far more resilient than the headlines ever let on. Even through the hardest, most disrupted years in recent memory, more than eight in ten came through without lasting psychological harm. Trauma is real. Resilience is also real. And for most veterans, the second is the larger story.

This is not a reason to look away from suffering. It is a reason to lean in. Because growth, the research is clear, does not happen in isolation. It happens in connection.

Trauma is real. Resilience is also real. And for most veterans, the second is the larger story.

Why the Silence Is So Dangerous

Here is the hard part, and we’d be doing veterans a disservice to soften it.

The growth doesn’t arrive on its own. It needs conditions. And the single most corrosive condition for a wounded veteran is the one we described at the start — the silence that descends once the acute crisis has passed and everyone assumes the work is done.

A veteran leaving service often loses, all at once, the things that held a life together: the mission, the tribe, the rank that told the world who they were, the structure that ordered every waking hour. We tend to treat that as a logistics problem — find a job, get the benefits sorted, fill out the forms. But it is something far deeper. It is the loss of belonging. And no amount of paperwork fills that particular hole.

When we, the community, go quiet, we don’t just leave a veteran alone. We confirm the lie that trauma whispers: you are a burden, you are separate, the world has moved on without you. The silence after a crisis can be every bit as dangerous as the crisis itself, precisely because it is so easy to mistake for peace.

You are not powerless here. That silence is not inevitable. It is a choice we make, one quiet afternoon at a time — and it is a choice we can unmake.

What Community Can Actually Do

Communities do not cure PTSD. Let’s be honest about that. We are not therapists, and we should never pretend to be. What we can do is reshape the conditions in which healing becomes possible — and on that front, ordinary neighbors hold extraordinary power. Here’s the part that should hearten every one of us: the things that protect a struggling veteran most are not found in a clinic. They are purpose, connection, and belonging. We may not be able to treat an injury we can’t see — but we can offer the very things that, time and again, matter most. Here is what that looks like in practice.

Veterans gathered around the table at Mission BBQ, beneath a wall of those who served. Belonging gets rebuilt in ordinary afternoons like this one.

Tell the truth, and don’t look away. A veteran wrestling with trauma can spot condescension and pity from across the room, and wants neither. What helps is honesty without flinching — a friend who can hear something hard and stay in the room, who treats them as capable rather than fragile. You don’t need the perfect words. You need to be willing to stay when the conversation gets uncomfortable. Presence beats advice nearly every time.

Be patient with a road that doesn’t run straight. Healing is not a tidy upward line. It loops, stalls, doubles back. A good month does not mean the work is finished, and a bad week does not erase the progress. The people who matter most are the ones who stay through both — who understand that showing up on the hundredth ordinary Tuesday is worth more than showing up once for the emergency.

Presence beats advice nearly every time.

Give them something worth doing. Of everything that protects veterans, a sense of purpose may be the strongest force of all — and few things rebuild it faster than being needed again. Veterans served with a mission and a role; the loss of both is part of what makes coming home so hard. So hand one back. Ask them to lead the project, anchor the crew, mentor the newcomer, carry something real. Not busywork — genuine responsibility. Purpose isn’t a luxury in this work. It’s the medicine.

Make belonging a habit, not a one-time invitation. The most healing thing you can extend is rarely a referral. It’s a standing place at the table. Come to dinner — and come back next week. Join the work crew. Sit with us on Sunday. Belonging isn’t built in a single gesture; it’s built in the ordinary rhythm of being expected somewhere, again and again, until showing up stops feeling like a question. And if they decline the first time, ask again. The invitation itself is part of the medicine.

Be a bridge to help — not a substitute for it. This is where knowing our limits saves lives. Many veterans who are struggling are not connected to professional care, and a good number never have been. We can’t be their counselors, but we can be the trusted person who knows the number, who offers to make the call together, who drives them to that first appointment, and waits in the parking lot. Sometimes the most important thing a neighbor ever does is walk a veteran the last few steps toward the help they’ve been carrying alone.

A Word to Our Faith Communities

There is a finding in that veterans’ study we haven’t mentioned yet, and it speaks directly to those of us who gather in churches and parishes.

Among all the factors the researchers measured, a veteran’s intrinsic faith — a living, interior spiritual life — stood out twice over. It was among the qualities most strongly tied to post-traumatic growth. And, on its own, regular participation in religious life lowers the risk of suicidal thinking, depression, and problem drinking — which means a faith community is not only a place where veterans heal, but one of the few places shown to help keep them alive. This should not surprise us. Faith traditions have always known how to hold suffering without trying to explain it away, how to find meaning in the valley rather than only on the mountaintop. Scripture tells us to bear one another’s burdens, and that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend. Veterans understand that second part in their bones. Our task is to live out the first.

A faith community offers something the clinic cannot: a place where a wounded person is known by name, expected each week, and folded into a story larger than their own pain. That is not a small thing. For a veteran who has lost their tribe, a congregation can become a new one. The pew next to yours may be the most important seat in the room.

From Standing Watch to Walking Alongside

So we return to where we began — to that silent kitchen on an ordinary Tuesday.

The watch we keep is not only for the night of the crisis. It extends into all the quiet days afterward, when the danger is invisible, and the temptation to look away is strongest. Standing watch teaches us to notice. The longer work asks something more of us: to stay. To move from noticing to accompanying. From prevention to belonging.

Community members and veterans on the SRQ Vets Memorial Day hike. The road home is long — and the point is that no one walks it alone.

Here in Azario, we made a commitment to our veterans, and a commitment is not a single act — it’s a posture we hold over years. We will keep training neighbors to recognize a veteran in crisis. We will also keep showing up on the hundredth Tuesday, because we now understand that both matter, and that the second is where resilience is quietly built.

The veterans among us are not broken. They are changed — and that change, given the right soil, can grow into a wisdom the rest of us would be lucky to learn from. Whether it grows depends, in no small part, on us. On whether we choose presence over distance, patience over urgency, and belonging over silence.

The watch continues. The question is whether we’ll stand it together.

The veteran mental health and resilience findings in this article are drawn from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study (NHRVS) — the most comprehensive nationally representative, longitudinal study of U.S. veterans, conducted by the VA National Center for PTSD and Yale University under the direction of Dr. Robert H. Pietrzak. The post-traumatic growth figures track two waves of the study: an earlier cohort (reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2020) and the most recent 2019–2020 cohort (Psychiatric Quarterly, 2023). Other figures reflect the 2019–2020 cohort, with follow-up through 2022.

Neighbors in Service is a community of veterans, military families, and those who support them. To learn how you can stand watch alongside us — through Watch Stander training, our community programs, or simply by showing up — reach out at info@neighborsinservice.org or visit neighborsinservice.org.

If you or a veteran you know is in crisis, the Veterans Crisis Line is available 24/7. Dial 988, then press 1.

Share Neighbors in Service

Our Strategy

Everything Neighbors in Service does flows from a single conviction. A community grows resilient only when knowledge, capacity, and remembrance advance together.

That is why our work is organized around three pillars: Educate, Strengthen, and Honor. Each stands on its own. Each reinforces the others. Educate builds knowledge. Strengthen builds the capacity to act on it. Honor makes certain the sacrifice behind it all is never forgotten.

The pillars are not compartments. A high school student who documents a veteran’s story is learning history, strengthening a genealogy club, and honoring a life at the same moment. That overlap is the point. We built an ecosystem, not a filing system.

1. Educate

We equip veterans, military families, and first responders with the practical tools, education, and mentoring required to build stable futures.

• Financial Literacy. Everyday skills for managing money on a fixed income, taught in cooperation with Manatee County Veterans Services.

• Career Planning. Clear pathways into meaningful civilian work.

• Small Business. Support for entrepreneurship, innovation, and local business growth.

• Scholarships. Direct investment in education for spouses and children.

Knowledge alone changes little. What changes outcomes is a knowledgeable neighbor who shows up consistently and asks nothing at the end.

2. Strengthen

We help veteran-serving organizations grow stronger, align their efforts, and increase their collective local footprint. Because we are Stronger Together, we focus on:

• Building Capacity. More resilient, sustainable organizations.

• Sharing Resources. Greater collaboration across regional networks.

• Preparing Neighbors. Training community members who can recognize a need and respond to it.

• Increasing Impact. More coordinated, effective service across Manatee County.

A stronger network is only as good as the people standing in it.

3. Honor

We honor the service and sacrifice of our nation’s heroes, ensuring their legacy is never forgotten. Our approach is holistic. Every veteran deserves four things: a story recorded, a flag placed, a stone marked, and a wreath laid.

• Community Remembrance. Uniting local citizens to remember our fallen.

• Documentation. Recovering and recording the names and stories of veterans buried in Manatee County.

• Care of Resting Places. Ensuring every veteran’s grave is marked, flagged, and tended.

• Teaching the Next Generation. Bringing students into the work of remembrance through service learning and civic engagement.

Our Pillar Partners

We do not run every program our community needs. Others already do that work, and they do it at national scale. Our role is to bring them here.

A Pillar Partner is an organization we represent to our community. We no longer sort partners into a single pillar, because the good ones never fit in only one. Wreaths Across America spans all three: sponsoring and laying wreaths is Honor, identifying veterans alongside local genealogy clubs is Strengthen, and bringing high school students into that work is Educate. The Fire Watch trains neighbors to recognize a veteran in crisis, which is education that becomes community capacity. American Corporate Partners prepares mentors and connects them to veterans building careers and businesses. Sorting any of them into one category would hide most of what they do here.

Our current Pillar Partners are Wreaths Across America, Folds of Honor, American Corporate Partners, Tunnel to Towers, and The Fire Watch. Each has its own page describing the relationship and what they need from our community right now.

What a partner receives from us: volunteers, visibility, and donations that arrive directly. What we ask in return is one thing. The ability to represent them honestly to our community.

Where Your Money Goes

Neighbors in Service accepts no donations for itself. Every link and QR code we publish routes you straight to the organization’s own secure donation gateway. Your gift goes to them, is processed by them, and is receipted by them.

One program works differently, and you should know how. Wreaths Across America returns five dollars to the sponsoring group for every wreath sponsored during a giving period. Those funds come to Neighbors in Service, and 100 percent of them go back into wreaths, placed on veterans’ graves at the Manatee County cemeteries with the greatest remaining need. We decide where they go. We keep none of them.

Join the Mission

There are three ways to stand with us. Learn through our educational programs. Show up for our community initiatives. Give directly through our Pillar Partners, where every dollar reaches the cause.

However you engage, you become part of this work.

Together, we build stronger futures. Educate. Strengthen. Honor.

As summer begins, Neighbors in Service carries forward the work that defines us — to Educate, Strengthen, and Honor those who served. June is National PTSD Awareness Month, and it arrives on the heels of a Memorial Day weekend when our Azario community turned out in force. This month, we open with that awareness effort, walk through the events ahead — from Women Veterans Day to our NEW July flag tradition at the Azario entrances — look back at what we accomplished together, and close with the partnerships that keep our community standing watch for one another.

Share Neighbors in Service

Check the Team Reach Events Calendar for sign-ups and updates. Not yet on Team Reach? Join today using code AZNIS4VETS.

PTSD Awareness Month — June 2026

June is National PTSD Awareness Month, and June 27 is National PTSD Awareness Day. This month, we encourage our community to learn, share, and check in on those around us — especially our veterans and first responders who carry burdens that are not always visible.

Mark your calendar for June 27 — a PTSD Awareness Resource Fair is planned at the Bradenton Conference Center. Details to follow. Watch our Substack and Team Reach Events Calendar for updates as they are confirmed.

Local Support — NAMI Sarasota & Manatee Counties
NAMI runs ongoing support groups throughout June at locations in Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, and Venice. Groups include peer recovery, family support, and specialty programs. Find the full calendar and connect with their team at namisarasotamanatee.org or call (941) 376-9361.

VA Resources
The VA National Center for PTSD offers a free virtual awareness walk throughout June, plus a free PTSD self-screening tool at ptsd.va.gov. The Sarasota VA Outpatient Clinic is also a local point of contact — 4099 Cattlemen Rd, Sarasota | (941) 371-3349.

In Crisis or Need to Talk?
Call or text 988 — available 24/7.

Watch our Substack this month for NIS’s new article dedicated to PTSD Awareness, along with our inaugural article looking at the Fire Watch program and how our community showed up for suicide awareness.

Heroes Welcome Home — Volunteer Day, June 6

A great volunteer opportunity for Azarians! Heroes Welcome Home, in partnership with the REALTOR Association of Sarasota and Manatee Community Outreach Committee, is organizing a volunteer cleanup and repair day for a local veteran whose property was impacted following a neighboring house fire. During firefighting operations, portions of the fence were removed to provide access for emergency personnel, and the property has since fallen into disrepair.

Project focus: yard cleanup and debris removal, minor repairs, mailbox replacement, shed evaluation, and working with local officials toward fence replacement.

This volunteer day is a hands-on opportunity to make a real difference for a deserving veteran right here in our community. Volunteers are needed for yard work, debris removal, and pressure washing. Donations of materials, landscaping supplies, and financial contributions are also welcome.

To volunteer or donate:

• Call: (941) 720-2221

• Email: info@heroeswelcomehome.org

• Web: heroeswelcomehome.org

Restoring a home. Restoring pride. Restoring hope.

Women Veterans | Lakewood Ranch Library Series

The Lakewood Ranch Library has been offering a wonderful series spotlighting the stories and service of women veterans — and we are glad to be sharing it with our community.

May 15 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Celebrating Military Women 250: Extraordinary Stories of Brave and Valiant Women
The President of Women Veterans of the Suncoast shared stories of key women leaders who bravely served our country. We hope those who attended found it as inspiring as we did.

June 12 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Women Veterans Day
Lakewood Ranch Library — Auditorium (Meeting Room A+B)

The series continues with an inspiring lecture from the Vietnam War era, featuring a special guest. The program is inspired by Kristin Hannah’s powerful novel The Women, which honors the extraordinary service of women who served our country. Come early or stay late to connect with the Manatee County Veteran’s Services Office — a vital resource for veterans and their dependents accessing earned benefits and community referrals.

This event is open to adults (18+). Seats are limited — register here to reserve your spot.

Azario Flags | Celebrating July 4th

NIS will be organizing flags at our Azario entrances for Independence Day. We pay homage to Karen Hernandez and the Sunshine Committee, who placed flags on Memorial Day and July 4th in past years - watch video above. It is a simple, powerful way to honor our country and show our community’s pride.

We need volunteers for both shifts — please check YES in the Team Reach Events Calendar for the date(s) you are available:

• Placement: Friday, July 3

• Retrieval: Monday, July 6

You can sign up for one or both. Every volunteer makes this display possible, and we hope you will be part of it.

Not yet on Team Reach? Join today using code AZNIS4VETS to stay connected with NIS events, updates, and volunteer opportunities in the Azario community.

Thank You, Azario! SRQ Vets 11th Annual Memorial Hike

What an incredible showing from our Azario community. On May 23, we joined hundreds of our neighbors for the 11th Annual SRQ Vets Memorial Hike — and you showed up in a big way. Over 30 Azario residents participated, and the NIS table helped extend our reach and connect with even more members of the local veteran community.

A special thank-you to the Azario Run/Walk Club for their partnership and participation. Their involvement helped make our community presence at this event truly meaningful, and we look forward to continuing that collaboration at future events.

With roughly 500 people in attendance, this year’s hike was one to remember. It raised both funds and awareness for the vital work SRQ Vets does in support of local veterans. Most importantly, it gave our community a space to come together, honor the fallen, and reflect on the true meaning of Memorial Day.

To everyone from Azario who laced up their shoes and walked with us — thank you. Your presence made a difference.

Coming Soon: We are exploring a collaboration with the Azario Run/Walk Club to participate in a walk/run in support of Tunnel to Towers. Stay tuned for details.

Everyday Money for Veterans on Fixed Incomes

Over the past several months, the NIS mentor team worked closely with Manatee County Veteran Services to build a financial readiness program designed specifically for veterans and their families living on fixed incomes. Mentors attended VA benefits update sessions at the Lakewood Ranch Library. They met with county Veteran Services counselors to review key areas of support — disability compensation, pensions, health care, education benefits, home loans, and local financial assistance programs.

That preparation paid off. Our three-session pilot — held on May 14, 21, and 28 at the Manatee County Veterans Services Office in Bradenton — was a success. Instructors and mentors engaged a diverse group of veterans seeking real, practical guidance on everything from basic budgeting to managing the rising cost of essential expenses. Working alongside counselors from Manatee County Veteran Services, every participant had the opportunity to personally review their VA benefits and explore available services to help meet those challenges.

And the results were real. One veteran cut his car insurance bill in half. Another received a job offer from Mission BBQ. A third built a plan to pay down credit card debt. And one veteran’s thoughtful feedback, draft by draft, shaped an updated Survivor’s Benefits Guide — a resource that will now help families well beyond this pilot.

All participants received professionally designed worksheets with local contact information and resources to support follow-through. Veterans also had the opportunity to opt into our Partner Mentor Program — brief monthly check-ins over 3–6 months to help with problem-solving and follow-through.

What’s next: The next session will be held at the VA in February 2027. In the meantime, NIS is working with community partners to offer courses for veterans throughout the year — stay tuned for upcoming announcements.

Our mentor team was outstanding throughout this pilot. If you are interested in joining the mentor team and giving back to our veterans, military families, and first responders, we would love to hear from you. Reach out at drjack@neighborsinservice.org, or connect with us on Team Reach using code AZNIS4VETS.

Valdez Veterans Alliance Services (VVAS)

May brought a first-of-its-kind event to Azario — the inaugural golf tournament hosted by Valdez Veterans Alliance Services (VVAS), where 100 golfers came out for a beautiful day on the course. Proceeds are used to support local veterans and veteran support organizations. Neighbors in Service was proud to serve as a Hole Sponsor, and we look forward to seeing this tournament grow in the years ahead.

Looking ahead, mark your calendars for VVAS’s 4th Annual USMC Birthday Ball & Fundraiser — Saturday, November 14, 2026, 6:00 PM at the Palmetto Marriott Resort & Spa. The evening honors service members and veterans from all branches of the service around the time-honored Marine Corps Birthday Ceremony, with dinner, auctions, a raffle, music, and dancing in support of Our Next Mission, which provides safe, accessible housing for disabled and at-risk veterans. Tickets are $350 per person — you can also gift one to a Marine — and sponsorships start at $1,000.

To learn more & get tickets · info@vvaservices.org · (941) 201-1070

Our Pillar Partners | Wreaths Across America & Folds of Honor

Two partnerships anchor how Neighbors in Service lives out its mission to Educate, Strengthen, and Honor — Wreaths Across America and Folds of Honor. Both welcome your support year-round.

Wreaths Across America

On December 19, 2026 — National Wreaths Across America Day — Neighbors in Service will lead the local effort to place remembrance wreaths at Mansion Memorial Park in Ellenton, where more than 1,700 veterans rest. Across Manatee County’s 49 private cemeteries, over 8,600 veterans are buried with no organized effort to honor them all — and we are changing that, starting at Mansion Memorial Park.

Each $17 wreath says: You are not forgotten. Sponsoring early helps us plan and grow toward our goal of 1,700 wreaths, and every wreath placed through our NIS page counts toward that local effort.

Sponsor a wreath through our NIS page: wreathsacrossamerica.org/FL0675P

Folds of Honor

Folds of Honor provides educational scholarships to the children and spouses of America’s fallen and disabled service members and first responders. In Florida alone this past year, 845 students received scholarships, while 7,700 qualified applicants nationwide went unfunded. NIS proudly stands with Folds of Honor, a 4-star Charity Navigator nonprofit, in supporting these families.

Support Folds of Honor through NIS: fundraise.givesmart.com/e/jyRPhw

NIS on Substack

Neighbors in Service is now on Substack, publishing monthly community updates (on the first of each month) and in-depth articles (mid-month) on topics that matter to our veterans, military families, first responders, and community supporters.

Our inaugural article spotlighted the Fire Watch program — including Azario’s own participation. This month’s article is dedicated to PTSD Awareness Month, with a focus on June 27, National PTSD Awareness Day.

Follow us on Substack so you do not miss a post.

Share Neighbors in Service

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) Florida Nonprofit — Educate · Strengthen · Honor
📧 info@neighborsinservice.org | 📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS | 👍 facebook.com/neighborsInservice

As we approach Memorial Day weekend, Neighbors in Service honors fallen heroes while supporting the veterans, military families, and first responders who continue to serve our community. This sacred day of remembrance calls us not only to pause and reflect, but to act—ensuring that the sacrifice of our nation’s heroes translates into lasting support for those who protect and serve.

Neighbors in Service launched in January 2026, and we’re approaching our first six months. From vision to action: we’ve trained 37 Azarians in suicide prevention, launched our Everyday Money financial wellness program for veterans on fixed incomes, joined the Manatee County Veterans Council, and supported several veteran service organizations with volunteers and donations—including Dogs Inc, Homes for Our Troops, Manatee County Veterans Services, Operation Warrior Resolution, and SRQ VETS.

This Memorial Day, we focus on two flagship partnerships that embody our mission to honor sacrifice through remembrance and education: Wreaths Across America and Folds of Honor. Both offer tangible ways to turn gratitude into action—to ensure those who made the ultimate sacrifice are never forgotten, and those they left behind always have our support.

May 2026 Community Update: For our calendar of events and program details, visit https://shorturl.at/aLQid

Neighbors in Service operates through three pillars: Educate (equipping veterans, military families, and first responders with practical tools and mentoring), Strengthen (helping veteran-serving organizations grow their capacity and impact), and Honor (ensuring the service and sacrifice of our nation’s heroes are never forgotten). Our two flagship partnerships—Wreaths Across America and Folds of Honor—exemplify this mission, translating remembrance into tangible support for those who served and the families they left behind.

Remember · Honor · Teach

On December 19, 2026, National Wreaths Across America Day, communities across the country will gather at cemeteries to place wreaths on veterans’ graves—a coordinated moment of remembrance and gratitude. Neighbors in Service has partnered with Wreaths Across America to ensure that local heroes resting in Manatee County are honored.

More than 1,700 veterans rest at Mansion Memorial Park in Ellenton, just minutes from Azario. Across Manatee County’s 49 private cemeteries, over 8,600 documented veterans are buried—many choosing hometown cemeteries to rest near family, in the communities they came home to protect. Unlike the coordinated efforts at national cemeteries, there is no organized initiative to honor every veteran in Manatee’s private hometown cemeteries. Neighbors in Service is changing that, starting with Mansion Memorial Park.

Memorial Day honors the fallen. Wreaths Across America ensures they are remembered year-round. This Memorial Day Weekend, you can sponsor a wreath ($17 each) to be placed on a veteran’s grave this December—a simple act of remembrance that says, “You are not forgotten.”

Sponsor a wreath: www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/FL0675P or use the QR code below.

Honor Their Sacrifice. Educate Their Legacy.

Folds of Honor provides educational scholarships to the spouses and children of America’s fallen or disabled military service members and first responders. Since its founding in 2007 by Lt Col Dan Rooney, Folds of Honor has awarded 73,000 scholarships nationwide with a total educational impact of $340 million. The folded flag—presented to families of the fallen—serves as a constant reminder of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

Memorial Day reminds us that freedom isn’t free. The families of those who made the ultimate sacrifice continue to face real challenges. Education opens doors to opportunity, but too many deserving families can’t afford it. In Florida alone, 845 scholarships were awarded during the 2025-2026 academic year totaling $3.9 million—yet nationwide, 7,700 qualified applicants went unfunded.

When we support Folds of Honor, we invest in the futures of those left behind. We honor fallen heroes by ensuring their children have access to the educational opportunities their parents fought to protect. This Memorial Day, your donation provides scholarships that transform lives and honor legacies.

Donate to provide educational scholarships: https://fundraise.givesmart.com/e/jyRPhw?vid=1q1nm4 or use the QR code below.

Remember · Honor · Serve

Remember. This Memorial Day weekend, pause to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Attend memorial services. Teach children why we remember. Hold their sacrifice sacred.

Honor. Turn remembrance into action. Sponsor a wreath for Wreaths Across America. Donate to Folds of Honor scholarships. Support the organizations serving those who served. Let gratitude become service.

Serve. Join Neighbors in Service as we build a community that never forgets and never stops serving. Because those who gave all deserve communities that give back—not just on Memorial Day, but every day.

Never forget means never stop serving.

CONTACT & DONATE:

Wreaths Across America: www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/FL0675P

Folds of Honor: https://fundraise.givesmart.com/e/jyRPhw?vid=1q1nm4

May 2026 Community Update: For our calendar of events and program details, visit https://shorturl.at/aLQid

Neighbors in Service
📧 info@neighborsinservice.org 📱 Team Reach Code: AZNIS4VETS
👍 facebook.com/neighborsInservice

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 33-1691201)

As we approach Memorial Day weekend, Neighbors in Service honors those who gave all while supporting those who gave some. This month brings our Everyday Money pilot, the SRQ VETS Memorial 5K, and plans for a new Wreaths Across America tradition at Mansion Memorial Park.

Everyday Money for Veterans on Fixed Incomes

As we get ready to launch Everyday Money for Veterans on Fixed Incomes, our mentor team has been working closely with Manatee County Veteran Services to better understand the benefits and supports already available to local veterans. Over the past several weeks, our mentors attended VA benefits update sessions at the Lakewood Ranch Library and met with county Veteran Services counselors to review the major areas of support, including disability compensation, pensions, health care, education benefits, home loans, and local financial assistance programs.

Building on this preparation, we are launching a three-session financial readiness pilot designed specifically for veterans and their families living on fixed incomes. Participants will explore practical ways to combat the rising cost of everything on a fixed budget, including uncovering unclaimed VA benefits, using Manatee County–specific cost-cutting resources, protecting credit, preventing scams, and building an emergency fund that actually works for real-life situations.

📅 Three May Sessions

Dates: May 14, May 21, May 28 (Thursdays)Time: 11:00 AM – Noon

Location: Manatee County Veterans Services Office, 1401 3rd Ave W., Bradenton

Cost: Free | Space: Limited

All participants receive professionally designed worksheets with local contact information and resources to make follow-up easier and more effective. REGISTER TODAY: Call (941) 745-3795.

Following the program, veterans can opt into our Partner Mentor Program—brief 15–20 minute monthly check-ins for 3–6 months to support follow-through and problem-solving.

Mentors are needed for this ongoing support. If you’re interested, contact drjack@neighborsinservice.org or express interest on Team Reach.

SRQ VETS Memorial Weekend 5K Hike

Neighbors in Service and the Azario Run/Walk Club invite you to honor fallen heroes at the SRQ VETS 11th Annual Memorial Weekend 5K Hike on Saturday, May 23, 2026. This special Memorial Weekend tradition is a powerful way to remember those who have fallen for our freedoms while standing alongside local veterans, families, and supporters from across Sarasota and Manatee Counties.

The 5K starts at JD Hamel Park on the Sarasota bayfront, winds through downtown, and returns to the park for a post-event celebration with food, music, and community. Proceeds support SRQ VETS’ emergency assistance for local veterans, helping meet urgent needs such as housing, utilities, and basic living expenses.

This year, more than 25 Azarians have already signed up to hike together, and there is still time to join in. If you are already registered or planning to register, please add a YES on Team Reach so we can keep you updated on carpooling plans and a casual post-hike gathering at Marina Jack’s. This will be a great way to finish the morning together and connect as a community.

🏃 Event Details

Date: Saturday, May 23, 2026

Location: JD Hamel Park, Sarasota

Register: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/srqvets/event/11thmemorialhike/

Azario Coordination

Already registered or planning to? Add a YES to Team Reach so we can:

• Coordinate carpooling from Azario

• Walk as a visible, supportive group

• Organize a casual lunch downtown after the hike

Highlight: Neighbors in Service Table

Neighbors in Service will host an information table at the event, sharing details about our current and upcoming programs for veterans and families. Be sure to stop by, say hello, and pick up information to share with friends and neighbors.

Join the Azario Run/Walk Club

IMPORTANT: Join the Azario Run/Walk Club (Code: EARWC24) for Saturday adventures that always end with a “Toasted Gathering.” Thanks to John D’Allegro’s leadership, this club has flourished into a great way to stay active, meet neighbors, and support local causes like SRQ VETS.

Celebrating Military Women 250 | LWR Library

The Lakewood Ranch Library hosts “Celebrating Military Women 250: Extraordinary Stories of Brave and Valiant Women” on Friday, May 15th, 11 AM–Noon. The President of Women Veterans of the Suncoast will share stories of key women leaders who bravely served our country. Registration required (63 seats available). Register at the LWR Library or online - https://manateelibrary.libcal.com/event/16369044

Knights of Columbus 3rd Annual Armed Forces Day Golf Tournament

The 3rd Annual Armed Forces Day Charity Golf Tournament is in the books — and Azario showed up in a big way.

On Monday, April 20, the Knights of Columbus San Damiano Assembly hosted their third annual charity golf tournament at Tara Golf & Country Club, with a full field of 128 golfers and a sold-out evening dinner program. Building on last year’s success, when the event raised more than $22,000 for veteran organizations with 117 golfers, this year’s tournament continued the tradition of golf, camaraderie, and gratitude for those who served.

Tentative results, pending final review, show this year’s event raised approximately $36,000—a significant increase over last year and a testament to growing community support.

What makes this event special is its impact: 100% of proceeds support veteran organizations, including The Fire Watch, Operation Warrior Resolution, Dogs Inc., Tunnel to Towers, Turning Points, and this year’s new honoree, Homes For Our Troops—an organization that builds mortgage-free, specially adapted homes for severely injured post‑9/11 veterans. Every foursome, raffle ticket, and sponsorship helped fuel this mission.

Azario was strongly represented, with more than 65 Azarians participating in the tournament and the post‑event dinner, raffles, and awards. Alongside our community golfers, we were honored to host two veteran foursomes representing The Fire Watch, Manatee County Veterans Services, and PGA HOPE—including Brianne Brown, who led the Azario Watch Stander Training this past March (and will return in Fall 2026), and our own Rob Garcia, US Marine and PGA HOPE golf instructor. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force were all represented on the same fairway in support of Homes For Our Troops.

From the opening tee shot to the final raffle, this tournament showcased what happens when faith, community, and gratitude for service come together. The Knights of Columbus San Damiano Assembly, their sponsors, and our Azario neighbors helped turn a day of golf into real, tangible support for veterans and their families.

Steel Across America | Sarasota Stop

Steel Across America | Sarasota Stop A steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center South Tower is traveling the country ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and it’s making a stop in Sarasota on Tuesday, May 19th at 6 PM (Emma E. Booker Elementary, 2350 Dr. MLK Way). Tunnel to Towers—a former honoree of the Knights of Columbus Armed Forces Day Golf Tournament—is bringing this powerful tribute to our community in remembrance. RSVP: steel25@t2t.org

Watch the story:

Never forget.

2026 Giving Challenge: Honoring Our Veteran Service Partners

The three veteran-focused organizations we highlighted during the 2026 Sarasota Giving Challenge demonstrated the power of community support and delivered outstanding results. Dogs, Inc. led the way, raising $140,246 from 377 generous donors, boosted by $29,972 in Patterson Foundation matching funds, for a final total of $170,218. This exceptional performance placed Dogs, Inc. in 9th place overall among all 751 participating nonprofits, showcasing the community’s deep commitment to their mission of providing service dogs to veterans and first responders.

Operation Warrior Resolution and SRQ VETS both demonstrated strong grassroots support from the veteran community and beyond. Operation Warrior Resolution raised $10,650 from 82 dedicated donors, receiving $7,100 in matching funds for a final total of $17,750, placing them 273rd overall. SRQ VETS engaged 56 supporters who contributed $8,575, which grew to $12,250 with $3,675 in matching funds, ranking 387th among participants. Combined, these three partner organizations raised $159,471 before matching and secured a combined final total of $200,218 to support veterans across our region.

Together, our highlighted partnerships mobilized 515 individual donors who recognized the critical importance of supporting those who have served our country. Their generosity during this 24-hour giving event will provide unrestricted funding that these organizations can use to meet their most pressing needs—whether that’s training more service dogs, providing mental health resources, or connecting veterans with essential community support.

Thank you to every Neighbors in Service member who donated. Your support during the 24-hour Giving Challenge demonstrated that Azario stands behind organizations serving our veterans.

New National Partnership | Wreaths Across America

A Vision Worth Sharing

When most people think of honoring veterans with a wreath on National Wreaths Across America Day, their minds go to places like Sarasota National Cemetery — and rightfully so. That’s sacred ground. Roughly 24,600 veterans rest there, and they will be honored.

But here’s something worth pausing on.

Across Manatee County, there are 49 private cemeteries where veterans have been laid to rest — buried near family, in their hometowns, in the communities they came home to protect. Records document more than 8,600 veterans across those grounds, and the real number is almost certainly higher.

Heroic wreath efforts happen across our region, and we honor every one of them. But a coordinated, county-wide effort to ensure every veteran in Manatee’s private hometown cemeteries is remembered — that doesn’t exist yet. Neighbors in Service aims to change that.

Because many of our veterans didn’t choose a national cemetery. They chose the cemetery where their mother is buried. Where their father rests. Where their family will one day gather together. They served for all of us — and they came home to us.

This December, we start where we’re planting our flag first:

Mansion Memorial Park in Ellenton, Florida, where more than 1,700 veterans rest, is minutes from our own community.

One cemetery. One community. One wreath at a time.

We’re grateful that early donors have already given this effort a strong start. Honoring all 1,700 veterans at Mansion Memorial Park will take all of us.

How can you help?

Starting on Memorial Day Weekend, sponsor wreaths ($17 each) through our Wreaths Across America partnership.

Follow facebook.com/neighborsInservice

Join Team Reach: AZNIS4VETS

Wreath sponsorship details will be available Memorial Day Weekend.

Stay Connected with Neighbors in Service

WE’RE ON FACEBOOK!

Neighbors in Service just launched our Facebook page at facebook.com/neighborsInservice—and we need your help building this community.

Why this matters: Facebook helps us reach beyond Azario to connect with veterans, military families, and supporters across Manatee County. It’s where we’ll share real-time updates, event photos, and ways to get involved.

Follow the page, share our posts, tag veteran friends who might benefit from our programs. The larger our reach, the more veterans we can serve.

We’ll continue posting on Azario Team Reach, neighborhood Facebook pages, and WhatsApp—think of the NIS page as one more way to amplify our mission.

📱 All event details, registration, and volunteer opportunities: Neighbors in Service Team Reach Access Code: AZNIS4VETS

Questions? Jack McGourty | drjack@neighborsinservice.org

As we approach Memorial Day, we continue to build on April’s momentum—Everyday Money launches, SRQ VETS Memorial 5K fills with Azarians, Wreaths planning ramps up, and veterans’ voices stay front and center across our community. This is what shared commitment looks like.

Neighbors in Service is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 33‑1691201).

March 3rd Success: 37 Azarians Trained

Our inaugural event brought 37 Azarians together for Fire Watch Watch Stander suicide prevention training—5 veterans, military family members, and supportive neighbors committed to learning skills that could save lives.

Brianne Brown, an Air Force veteran and Regional Manager at The Fire Watch, led an exceptional 90-minute training session filled with enthusiastic participation, thoughtful questions, and powerful lived experiences shared by attendees. We walked away equipped to recognize when veterans are in crisis and connect them with life-saving resources.

🎯 BY THE NUMBERS
37 trained Watch Standers
5 veterans in attendance
90-minute intensive training
12% decrease in veteran suicides in communities with trained Watch Standers

Based on the strong turnout and engagement, we look forward to inviting Brianne back for future sessions. In the meantime, we’re developing many more opportunities to support veterans, military families, and first responders right here in Azario.

New Partnership: Operation Warrior Resolution

Neighbors in Service is partnering with Operation Warrior Resolution (OWR), a local nonprofit providing holistic mental health care to veterans and their families through innovative brain-based healing approaches.

Located at 17507 Waterline Rd in Bradenton, OWR offers Tactical Healing Retreats and comprehensive support services that address trauma at its root cause—in the brain. Their approach goes beyond traditional talk therapy to provide neurologically-focused healing for veterans dealing with PTSD, TBI, and other service-related mental health challenges.

🤝 VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Fundraising & donor relations
Event planning & coordination
Landscaping & grounds maintenance
Kitchen support for retreat programs
Administrative assistance

Get Involved: Visit www.operationwarriorresolution.org and click “Volunteer.”
Questions? Call OWR at (941) 806-5722
When you register, let us know on Team Reach so we can coordinate Azario community support efforts.

Everyday Money for Veterans on Fixed Incomes

After months of development with Manatee County Veterans Services, we’re launching a three-session financial readiness pilot designed for veterans and their families living on fixed incomes.

Learn ways to combat the rising cost of everything on a fixed budget—unclaimed VA benefits, Manatee County-specific cost-cutting resources, credit protection, scam prevention, and emergency fund strategies that actually work.

📅 THREE MAY SESSIONS
Dates: May 14, May 21, May 28 (Thursdays)
Time: 11:00 AM to Noon
Location: Manatee County Veterans Services Office
1401 3rd Ave W., Bradenton
Cost: Free | Space: Limited!

All participants receive professionally designed worksheets with local contact information and resources.

REGISTER TODAY: Call (941) 745-3795

Mentors Needed: Following the program, veterans can opt into our Partner Mentor Program—15-20 minute monthly check-ins for 3-6 months. Interested? Contact drjack@neighborsinservice.org or express interest in Team Reach.

SRQ VETS Memorial Weekend 5K Hike

Neighbors in Service and the Azario Run/Walk Club invite you to honor fallen heroes at the SRQ VETS 11th Annual Memorial Weekend 5K Hike on Saturday, May 23rd.

This family-friendly event brings together veterans, families, and supporters from across Sarasota and Manatee Counties. The 5K starts at JD Hamel Park, winds through downtown Sarasota, then returns for a post-event celebration with food, music, and community. Proceeds support SRQ VETS’ emergency assistance for local veterans.

🏃 EVENT DETAILS
Date: Saturday, May 23, 2026
Location: JD Hamel Park, Sarasota
Register: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/srqvets/event/11thmemorialhike/

Azario Coordination: Already registered or planning to? Add a YES to Team Reach so we can coordinate carpooling and organize a casual lunch downtown for our group.

IMPORTANT! Join the Azario Run/Walk Club (Code: EARWC24) for Saturday adventures that always include a Toasted Gathering. Thanks to John D’Allegro, this club has flourished into a great way to stay active and connected.

Knights’ 3rd Annual Armed Forces Day Golf Tournament

The Knights of Columbus San Damiano Assembly hosts their third annual charity golf tournament at Tara Golf & Country Club on April 20th. Last year, raised over $22,000 for veteran organizations with 117 golfers—this year will be bigger and better, with a maximum of 128 golfers.

100% of proceeds support veteran organizations, including The Fire Watch, Operation Warrior Resolution, Dogs Inc., Tunnel to Towers, Turning Points, and this year’s new honoree: Homes for Our Troops—building mortgage-free, specially adapted homes for severely injured post-9/11 veterans.

⛳ TOURNAMENT DETAILS
Date: Monday, April 20, 2026
Location: Tara Golf & Country Club
Registration Closes: Wednesday, April 15
Includes: 18 holes, dinner, awards, putting contest, 50/50 raffle, silent auction

Register, Sponsor, or Dinner Only: https://www.knights3192.org/
This event will sell out—register your foursome, purchase a sponsorship, or become a tee sponsor today.

NIS Joins Manatee County Veterans Council

Neighbors in Service has been accepted as a member of the Manatee County Veterans Council—a coalition of veteran service organizations coordinating support for 40,000+ veterans in Manatee County.

This membership means better coordination among VSOs, unified advocacy at the county level, a direct volunteer pipeline to partner organizations, and real-time information on new programs and resources.

🤝 WHAT THIS MEANS
Better referrals when veterans need help
Azario's representation in county-level advocacy
More volunteer opportunities identified
Faster access to new benefits and programs

This formalizes what we’ve been building—a comprehensive support network where veterans know their community is coordinated, connected, and committed.

Get Connected

📱 All event details, registration, and volunteer opportunities:
Neighbors in Service Team Reach
Access Code: AZNIS4VETS

Questions? Jack McGourty | drjack@neighborsinservice.org

In 2023, 622 Florida veterans died by suicide. That’s not a statistic that fades with time—it’s a reality that echoes through families, communities, and the lives of those who served alongside them. The rate of veteran suicide in Florida is more than twice the civilian rate, a sobering disparity that demands not resignation, but action.

Yet here’s what’s remarkable: The Fire Watch has trained over 12,447 Watch Standers across Florida—ordinary community members equipped with the skills to recognize and respond to veterans in crisis. In regions where these trained Watch Standers are concentrated, the impact is undeniable: Northeast Florida has documented a 26% reduction in veteran suicides from 2019 to 2025, compared to a 10% statewide reduction over the same period. Prevention isn’t theoretical. It’s measurable. It’s real.

This is the story of The Fire Watch, the Watch Stander training program, and how Neighbors in Service is bringing this life-saving intervention into Azario and beyond.

THE CRISIS: NUMBERS WITH FACES BEHIND THEM

Before we talk solutions, we need to understand what we’re facing. Veterans comprise 7.7% of Florida’s population, yet they account for a wildly disproportionate share of the state’s suicides. The disparity isn’t new, but it’s accelerating in unexpected ways.

From 2022 to 2023, younger veterans (ages 18-34) showed a dramatic and encouraging decline in suicide rates. But simultaneously, middle-aged veterans (35-54) saw an upturn—a pattern that runs counter to what’s happening in the civilian population. This divergence matters because it tells us veteran suicide isn’t following predictable demographic curves. The unique stressors of military service shape it, the challenges of transition, and the persistent struggle to find meaning after the uniform comes off.

In Manatee County, the picture is particularly acute. We’ve experienced one of the largest increases in veteran suicides since 2019. These aren’t abstract numbers. They’re neighbors. They’re first responders. They’re people who answered the call to serve, and now they’re struggling in isolation while the rest of us move through our daily lives unaware.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to respond. It’s whether we can afford not to.

WHO IS THE FIRE WATCH? AN ORGANIZATION COMMITTED TO “TURNING THE CURVE”

The Fire Watch is a Florida-based 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to ending veteran suicide through evidence-based community intervention. Founded on the premise that suicide prevention isn’t solely the work of clinical professionals, The Fire Watch has built an innovative model: equip ordinary community members with skills to identify veterans in crisis and connect them to professional help.

Their approach rests on a simple but transformative insight: most veterans don’t die by suicide without warning. They show signs—changes in behavior, withdrawal from community, expressions of hopelessness. But those signs are often missed because the people around them don’t know what they’re looking for.

To date, The Fire Watch has trained over 12,447 Watch Standers across Florida—an expanding network of trained community members, veterans, faith leaders, and neighbors. These trained Watch Standers are projected to generate approximately 14,936 veteran referrals to professional resources over the next 12 months, connecting struggling veterans with the mental health and crisis support services they need.

The impact is measurable and compelling. In Northeast Florida, where Watch Standers are most concentrated, veteran suicides have declined 26% from 2019 to 2025—significantly outpacing the 10% statewide reduction over the same period. This disparity tells us something vital: training and community readiness matter profoundly. The more Watch Standers you have, the more lives you save.

WHAT IS WATCH STANDER TRAINING? CPR FOR VETERAN MENTAL HEALTH

Imagine CPR training for physical emergencies. You learn to recognize the signs of cardiac arrest, you practice the technique, and suddenly you’re equipped to intervene in a moment that could determine whether someone lives or dies. Watch Stander training operates on the identical principle—but for mental health crises.

The training is remarkably efficient: one hour. In that hour, participants learn to recognize warning signs that a veteran may be in crisis—withdrawal, increased substance use, expressions of hopelessness, isolation from community, reckless behavior. They practice engaging compassionately, asking direct questions without judgment. And they learn how to connect struggling veterans to professional resources: crisis hotlines, mental health professionals, peer support networks, and emergency services.

The beauty of Watch Stander training is its accessibility. You don’t need a clinical background. You don’t need to be a veteran yourself. You might be a spouse, a community member, a coworker, a faith leader, or a neighbor. What matters is your willingness to pay attention and your commitment to act when you notice someone struggling.

The training is also honest about its limits. Watch Standers aren’t therapists. They’re not replacing professional care. Rather, they’re the connective tissue—the first responder to a mental health emergency, the person who notices and intervenes before crisis becomes tragedy.

OUR COMMUNITY RESPONSE: FROM ASSEMBLY TO NEIGHBORHOOD

In San Damiano Assembly 3192, something historic unfolded over 55 Sir Knights and their spouses completed Watch Stander training, making San Damiano the first Knights of Columbus Assembly in Florida to achieve Veteran Safe Place Certification—official recognition that the organization has trained sufficient members to become a recognized resource for veterans in crisis.

This achievement reflects a deliberate choice by Assembly leadership to live out the Fourth Degree commitment to patriotism and service. Among the Assembly’s 100+ veterans, trained Watch Standers now walk the halls. At meetings, at charitable events, at moments of vulnerability, Sir Knights are equipped to recognize distress and respond with both compassion and concrete support.

But the work couldn’t stop at the Assembly doors.

On March 3rd, 2026, Neighbors in Service hosted its inaugural Watch Stander training event in Azario. Brianne Brown—an Air Force veteran and Regional Program Manager for The Fire Watch—led an intensive 90-minute session that brought together 37 Azarians: five veterans, military family members, and supportive community neighbors. The energy in the room reflected something powerful: ordinary people choosing to become extraordinary first responders to veteran mental health crises.

The training was filled with enthusiastic participation, thoughtful questions, and powerful lived experiences shared by attendees. People walked away equipped not with theory, but with concrete skills—how to recognize when a veteran is in crisis, how to engage with compassion and directness, how to connect struggling veterans with life-saving resources.

Thirty-seven trained Watch Standers now live in Azario. They know their neighbors. They understand the stakes. And they’ve committed to paying attention in ways that could fundamentally alter the trajectory of someone’s life.

Recognizing the momentum from that inaugural success, Neighbors in Service is planning the next Watch Stander cohort for Fall 2026. The goal is clear: expand the network of trained, vigilant community members who understand that standing watch for veterans is everyone’s responsibility.

WHAT YOU CAN DO—CONNECTING VETERANS TO SUPPORT

If this resonates, if you’re recognizing the weight of veteran suicide in your own circles, there are concrete ways to engage:

Get trained. Watch Stander training is coming to Azario again in Fall 2026. Whether you’re a veteran, a military family member, a first responder, or a community supporter, the training equips you with specific, actionable skills. Attend. Learn. Become part of the solution.

Look around your own circles. You likely know veterans. You probably know first responders. You may know military families navigating the unique challenges of service-connected life. Watch for changes—withdrawal, increased substance use, recklessness, expressions of hopelessness. These aren’t violations of privacy; they’re signs of distress. Intervening with care and directness can be the moment that changes everything.

Know the resources—and share them. If you notice a veteran in crisis, your next step is to connect them to professional support. The Veterans Crisis Line (call or text 988, then press 1) provides 24/7, confidential support to veterans and their families at no cost. This is a national resource backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs—a direct lifeline to trained counselors who understand military culture and the specific challenges veterans face.

Beyond crisis intervention, the VA offers comprehensive mental health services to eligible veterans: therapy, medication management, peer support groups, and specialized programs for trauma, substance use, and suicide prevention. If you’re a veteran or know one, visit VA.gov or call the VA benefits hotline at 1-800-827-1000 to explore eligibility and services.

For immediate support outside crisis hours, local resources include the Manatee County Veterans Services Office (941-745-3795), which can navigate you toward VA benefits, mental health resources, and community support networks.

Support those who stand watch. Watch Standers can’t do this alone. They need communities that understand their role and reinforce their efforts. When you encounter someone who’s completed the training, acknowledge their commitment. Ask how you can support their work.

FROM CRISIS TO COMMUNITY ACTION

The statistic with which we began—622 Florida veterans lost to suicide in 2023—represents an enormous, ongoing tragedy. But it’s not destiny. In counties where Watch Standers are trained and active, the curve is bending downward. Communities are turning the tide.

That transformation doesn’t happen through policy alone or professional intervention alone. It happens when ordinary people—Sir Knights in an Assembly, neighbors in a community, coworkers in a workplace—decide that veteran suicide is not someone else’s problem. It’s ours.

We invited you into this story not to overwhelm you with statistics, but to empower you with possibility. Every trained Watch Stander represents a potential lifeline. Every person who notices a veteran struggling represents an opportunity for intervention. Every community that embraces this responsibility moves closer to a world where fewer veterans die by suicide, and more find their way back to belonging.

Neighbors in Service believes that standing watch for veterans is standing watch for ourselves—for the integrity of our community and the values we claim to hold. That commitment begins with attention, deepens through training, and manifests in the concrete act of showing up when someone is struggling.

The question isn’t whether we can prevent veteran suicide. The data from Watch Stander counties tells us we can. The question is whether we’ll choose to.

Learn more about Watch Stander training and upcoming Azario cohorts. Fall 2026 registration details coming soon.

Resources:
Veterans Crisis Line: 988, then press 1 (24/7, confidential)
VA Mental Health Services: VA.gov or 1-800-827-1000
Manatee County Veterans Services: 941-745-3795

Countdown to Our Inaugural Event

Tuesday, March 3, 2026 | 6:00 PM | Azario Venue

In just days, we come together for something truly important—Fire Watch Watch Stander Training, our inaugural Neighbors in Service event.

We’re expecting 30-40 Azario residents, and there’s still room for more. This one-hour training teaches you to recognize when a veteran is in crisis and guide them to help using the VA SAVE method. Think CPR for suicide prevention—practical skills that could save a life.

Why this matters: Florida loses approximately 500 veterans to suicide each year. Communities with trained Watch Standers see a 12% decrease in veteran suicides. That’s not just a number—that’s neighbors saved, families kept whole.

You’ll meet Brianne Brown, Air Force veteran and Fire Watch Regional Program Director, who will lead the training. No military experience needed—just willingness to be there for those who served.

Register on NIS Team Reach Event Calendar (Code: AZNIS4VETS)

New Partnership: SRQ VETS Memorial Hike

We’re proud to announce our partnership with SRQ VETS, a volunteer-led nonprofit where veterans help other veterans across Sarasota and Manatee counties. They provide transportation assistance, home modifications for disabled veterans, support in Veterans Court, and community programs that make real differences in veterans’ lives.

🏃 11th Annual Memorial Day 5K Hike
Saturday, May 23, 2026 | JD Hamel Park, Sarasota

This isn’t just a hike—it’s a community coming together to honor fallen heroes while raising funds to support local veterans. The route starts at JD Hamel Park, winds through downtown Sarasota and Main Street, then returns to the park for a cookout, music, and family activities.

Co-marketing with Azario Walk/Run Club: We’re encouraging large Azario family participation. Free for kids under 12 with paid adult. Registration includes event shirt, lunch, and beverage.

More details coming in April’s newsletter and on Team Reach.

Volunteer Opportunity: Dogs, Inc.

Dogs, Inc. transforms lives by providing highly trained service dogs to veterans—at no cost. Their extraordinary dogs offer veterans independence, confidence, and freedom, with lifetime support, food, and preventative veterinary care all included.

🐕 Palmetto Campus - Volunteers Needed NOW

We’re helping Dogs, Inc. recruit volunteers for their current Palmetto campus. Whether you can help with dog care, facility maintenance, events, or administrative support—every role matters in getting these life-changing service dogs to veterans who need them.

🏗️ Lakewood Ranch Campus - Opening Summer 2026

Dogs, Inc. is building a brand-new campus on LWR Boulevard between SR70 and SR64. Construction is underway, and volunteer applications will open when the facility is completed. We’ll keep you posted on timing.

Learn more: www.dogsinc.org
Express interest: Contact us or check Team Reach for volunteer info sessions

Financial Wellness Program Ready to Launch

In partnership with Manatee County Veterans Services, we’ve developed “Everyday Money for Veterans on Fixed Incomes”—a complete four-session program designed specifically for Manatee County veterans aged 60+ living on fixed incomes.

The Four Sessions:

1. Making the Most of What Comes In - Unclaimed VA benefits, income optimization

2. Stretching the Dollar - Practical cost-cutting strategies with local resources

3. Staying Out of Trouble - Credit protection, scam prevention, debt management

4. Building a Small Cushion - Emergency funds, simple savings approaches

Each session includes professionally designed PowerPoint presentations and take-home worksheets with Manatee County-specific contact information and resources.

🤝 Mentors Needed

We’re seeking volunteers for our Partner Mentor Program—brief monthly check-ins for 3-6 months with veterans who take the course. One concrete task per session. Complete privacy, no judgment, just neighbor-to-neighbor support.

Program launches this spring. If you have financial literacy, budgeting experience, or simply want to help veterans maintain stability, we’d love to talk with you.

Building Something Bigger

These four initiatives—Watch Stander training, SRQ VETS partnership, Dogs Inc. volunteering, and financial wellness—represent what we’re building: a comprehensive support network where veterans, military families, and first responders know their community has their back.

Manatee County is home to over 40,000 veterans. Through Neighbors in Service, we’re creating practical ways to serve them—one training, one hike, one volunteer shift, one mentoring conversation at a time.

Get Connected

📱 All event details, registration, and volunteer opportunities:
Neighbors in Service Team Reach
Access Code: AZNIS4VETS

Questions:
Jack McGourty | drjack@neighborsinservice.org

New VA Report, Same Call to Action

This month, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released its latest Veteran Suicide Report. The data reinforces what we shared in our January update—and why our community’s involvement continues to matter.

On average, 17 veterans die by suicide each day in the United States. In Florida, the veteran suicide rate remains over 10% higher than the national average, translating into hundreds of lives lost each year. These are not just statistics—they represent neighbors, families, and fellow residents in communities like ours.

🔗 View the VA Veteran Suicide Report:https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/data.asp

That’s why we’re continuing to bring Watch Stander training to Azario.

🎯 WATCH STANDER TRAININGTuesday, March 3, 2026 | 6:00 PM | Azario VenueGoal: 50 Azario Residents Trained

What is a Watch Stander?

Think CPR for suicide prevention. You’ll learn to recognize when a veteran may be in crisis and guide them to help using the VA SAVE method. No military or clinical experience needed—just a willingness to learn practical skills that can make a difference.

👉 Register on the NIS Team Reach Event Calendar

Building Something Historic for Our Veterans

Earlier in January, Valor Commons officially broke ground, marking an important milestone for veteran services in Manatee County. A number of Neighbors in Service members attended the January 14 ground-breaking ceremony, joining county leaders, veterans, and community partners to celebrate the launch of this long-envisioned project.

Located on a 24-acre site in north Manatee County, Valor Commons is being developed as a Veterans Connection Hub and Memorial Campus—a welcoming, centralized place where veterans and their families will be able to navigate services, find peer and caregiver support, gather for community events, and reflect in thoughtfully designed memorial spaces.

Project leaders shared that early-phase site work is already underway, focusing on core infrastructure such as utilities, parking, and initial memorial elements. The goal is to have some services available within approximately one year, with the full campus continuing to build out in phases. Long-term plans call for Valor Commons to transition into an independently operated nonprofit to ensure sustainability and community stewardship.

The strong turnout at the groundbreaking underscored the broad support behind this initiative. Neighbors in Service looks forward to continuing to engage with Valor Commons as the project progresses and to exploring ways our community can support its mission in the months ahead.

Your Voice Matters: Take the County’s 5-minute survey on veteran services.

Survey: https://www.surveylegend.com/s/64em

Learn More:

https://valor-commons-manateegis.hub.arcgis.com

When Community Clubs Unite for Heroes

The Azario Italian Club’s inaugural Pizza for a Cause was a terrific example of resident-led community impact. Organized and led by the Italian Club, the event raised $2,078 in support of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which provides mortgage-free homes to Gold Star families and specially adapted homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders.

Neighbors in Service was pleased to support the effort by helping promote the event across our club membership and broader community network, and to see such strong participation from residents in support of this important cause.

We join the Azario Italian Club in thanking the team at Olive & Vine for preparing the pizzas and Chris McDonald, Food & Beverage Director, for his continued support. We also extend appreciation to Joseph Bonanno, FDNY firefighter and Tunnel to Towers Ambassador, for being onsite and helping make the evening a success.

Most of all, we commend the Azario Italian Club committee for their leadership, dedication, and hard work in bringing this inaugural fundraiser to life. Grazie mille to everyone who helped make a difference.

As a reminder, Neighbors in Service stands ready to support and help promote Azario club initiatives focused on veterans, military families, and first responders. With so many philanthropic and community-minded efforts underway across Azario, we welcome opportunities to collaborate and help amplify resident-led impact.

Get Connected

📱 All event details, registration, and participation information are available on: Neighbors in Service Team ReachAccess Code: AZNIS4VETS

Upcoming highlights include:

• Watch Stander Training – March 3, 6:00 PM at the Azario Venue

• Ongoing opportunities to support veteran-, military family–, and first responder–focused initiatives across our community

If you are part of an Azario club or informal group planning an activity that supports veterans, military families, or first responders, Neighbors in Service is ready to help promote and support your efforts.

Questions or ideas?📧 Contact: Jack McGourty | drjack@neighborsinservice.org