Editor’s Note: This story is part of the Press Gazette’s Celebrate Community series on Santa Rosa County nonprofit organizations that improve our quality of life.
MILTON — The Santa Rosa County Veterans Memorial Foundation serves the military community numerous ways.
Under the foundation’s umbrella are three organizations: Vets2VA, VAssist and the Veterans Memorial Plaza. Through Vets2VA and VAssist, veterans who qualify can receive assistance with rides to the VA clinic and quality of life improvement. Through the Veterans Memorial Plaza, people can buy bricks to be placed on the plaza’s walkways with a veteran's name.
While the foundation has a board of trustees, the one who coordinates foundation activities is general manager Ralph Nesenson, a retired Navy veteran.
Vets2VA
Vets2VA provides veterans transportation to medical appointments. Nesenson said. When the foundation formed in 2011, 80 vets signed up to ride. Today, he said there are 110.
Vets2VA has had a rocky past, according to Nesenson, with changes in transportation services but it can now run for almost the next eight years due to the new transportation company taking veterans and a recent fundraiser.
Santa Rosa County collaborated with Tri-County Transportation to transport veterans free of charge. Because these veterans qualify for the Transportation Disadvantaged program, Nesenson said the round trip per veteran from Santa Rosa County to the VA clinic in Pensacola is $6. The Transportation Disadvantaged program is a state organization providing discounted public transportation to those in need.
The original agreement, he said, was for $65 per trip, which cost the foundation $1,400 to $1,500 a month. "Now it's under $400 a month," he said.
Vets2VA receives funds from community partners and businesses, but this year, the program is one of three receiving funds from the Gulf Power Clay Shoot for America’s Heroes fundraiser. The final dollars have not been calculated, according to Gulf Power, but the total so far is over $90,000, meaning at least $30,000 will go to Vets2VA.
Nesenson said this money, plus what the program still has saved, would be enough to last almost another eight years.
VAssist
The Veterans Assistance Program, or VAssist, supports quality of life needs, according to Nesenson. These include fixing or replacing air conditioning and heating units and building wheelchair ramps.
VAssist was highly involved in the Daniel Palmer house, Nesenson said. In 2010, Cpl. Daniel Palmer was wounded while on patrol in Marjah, Afghanistan. The Santa Rosa County Veterans Memorial Foundation and the Pensacola-based Gulf Coast Veterans in Need group came together last year to build Palmer and his family a home.
VAssist has also put up eight wheelchair ramps for veterans, Nesenson said. Four of them came with help from Ray of Hope, a Woodbine United Methodist Church ministry that installs the ramps for those in need.
Santa Rosa County Commissioner Don Salter, the foundation's chairperson, said, “We're very limited on the types of larger projects we can do because of limited funds. That's why we do minor home repair, heaters, air conditioners … The amount of funds we raise certainly will dictate what we can do to help those veterans with those quality of life needs.”
Churches and other organizations sometimes refer the needs.
"In some cases, it's sad. A lot of our veterans are alone. They don't have any family local. They may not have friends that can help. Many live in rundown buildings," Salter said.
VETERANS MEMORIAL PLAZA
When Salter started serving on the commission in 2001, one of his goals was to build the Veterans Memorial Plaza.
Working with the community, he said, this happened and the county dedicated it in 2004. The plaza contains monuments to the fallen soldier, freedom, panels representing the five branches of service with a timeline of the equipment and people, starting at the Revolutionary War. There’s also a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument, a Purple Heart monument and a monument to military service dogs.
The floor of the plaza, called "The Walk of Honor," contains bricks bearing the names of veterans who died in any circumstance.
For example, a brick bears the name of Army Pfc. Brandon Banner, a Milton High School graduate who died, along with eight others, during a June 2 training accident. Nesenson said he learned Banner was close to these others, so he added a brick for each as well.
Near these bricks, Nesenson also has room set aside for any members of Naval Air Station Whiting Field who die.
For more information on the foundation or to buy a brick, visit http://www.srcvmf.org.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Veterans Memorial Foundation: honoring body and soul