Our Mission: "Advocate for and Partner with Veterans, first responders, service members, their families, and those at risk in our community-to identify, access, and secure resources necessary to achieve their goals. Our Belief: "We Rise by Lifting Others....."
Click on link above to see video
Our Story
Veterans Base Camp (VBC) is a faith-based 501 (c) (3) charitable nonprofit organization located in a very rural Chaplin Connecticut. Our executive director, Cindy Archibald applied to be a volunteer grant writer in October of 2018. During her interview, the owner offered her the opportunity to create her "dream" program at VBC's 300+ year old facility/property, but it would have to be from scratch-no funding, no staff, just the use of the facility/property. By spring of 2019 R.E.S.E.T (Regroup, Evaluate, Strategize, Engage, and Track) Program for veterans was created and the first veterans began to find their way to VBC.
Through word-of-mouth and social media, VBC began to grow. By December of 2019, volunteers and businesses had begun to donate their resources and talents to help rehab the facility that had been vacant for more than 8 years. The buildings painted, flooring put in, new fencing for the pool area, repainting the interior of the cabins and main building. It was beautiful seeing people giving of their time and their labor to create a welcoming place for veterans.
Vittles 4 Vets Food Pantry opened in October of 2019 and by March of 2020 we were serving 180 veterans and their families(over 300 people total). We delivered food did wellness checks on our veterans to 22 homebound veterans during those uncertain COVID times.
In March of 2021, VBC was told that the owners of the property wanted to sell the property and that the disabled veterans that were living there while in the R.E.S.E.T program would have to move or be evicted. To make a long story short, as the plight of our veterans became known via social media, prayer chains, and television, Connecticut's citizens rallied around the veterans and VBC was able to find a bank willing to give a mortgage to a nonprofit, raise enough funds to put the $240,000 required down payment on the property and on June 30th, 2021, VBC signed papers and bought the property. To date, VBC provides clinical and pastoral counseling, case management, food pantry, psychoeducation, outreach to 86 veterans in 5 area nursing homes/rehabilitation center-distributing
Buddy Bags and starting a monthly Coffee Hour with our veterans and the veterans i the nursing homes, outreach and support to 9 veterans and their families who are homebound. To date, we have had 21 veterans participate in the R.E.S.E.T program. VBC has also partnered with our local high school's Transitional Education Program to provide opportunities for them to learn prevocational skills in a supportive environment. This has been a win-win for the students, school and our veterans.
What do we need the donations for?
As mentioned before, the large part of the main building is over 300 years old. It had been vacant for 8+ years and there was much in disrepair. Appliances like the Camp's 30 years old commercial Viking stove/oven, and refrigerator "passed" this past month. The furnace is on life support and needs costly repairs. We have veterans who have physical disabilities that are part of the R.E.S.E.T program and who come to get food at our food pantry. During the winter, it was clear that we would need to get walkways paved and lights put in along the path from the cabins to the main building where they cook, meet and where the Food Pantry is located. The remainder of the driveway also needs to be paved so that elderly veterans do not slip or get stuck when they come to the weekly food pantry. Estimates for paving the rest of driveway and putting in the walkways were $40,000. The lights for the walkways, the furnace, and stove add another $18,000. The remainder of the money left if we were to reach our $75,000 would be used to provide services for our veterans, their families and those at risk in our community.
Did I mention that not one penny of the donations we receive goes to salaries? EVERY person on our team is a volunteer. VBC has been a work of heart. To learn more about Base Camp you can visit our website at: www.veteransbasecampinc.org , or view this video made by one of the vets who went through our R.E.S.E.T program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfvR02Q0bhM&t=162s
Thank you for taking the time to read this and to learn more about Veterans Base Camp. We hope you will consider donating to VBC to support our veterans who have given so much.
Sincerely,
Veterans Base Camp
