August 2026 Community Update
A new project to honor local veterans by name, a mentoring partnership just getting started, and a wreath campaign now reaching cemeteries across our region. August is a busy one.
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
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.
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.
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.
Someone Who Has Been There
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…
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.
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
