Program areas at Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors
Emergency Assistance provides assistance to wounded warriors and their families in the form of financial assistance, goods, and services for various needs. Examples of these include food assistance, rental assistance, gas cards or travel expenses. Support is also given for utility bills and emergency funds. Emergency funds are for warriors in dire need. Some are living out of their cars. Some have families but are so short of food, they are unable to provide meals.
This program consist of 2 programs: 1. Equine Therapeutic Riding utilizes horses as a physical therapy tool. Warriors work at improving balance, muscle strength, motor development and emotional well being. Licensed PATH instructor is used. This program is also available for children with special needs of wounded warriors. 2. Scuba Warriors is a therapeutic scuba diving program to improve cardio vascular strength, muscle strength, cognitive ability and emotional well being.
Morale Programs include our most popular program Christmas Wish, where community families adopt military families for the holidays and give them gifts, holiday meals and friendship. In addition, we have Christmas Gift A Card Program which are beautifully sewn envelopes filled with gift cards. This allows the family to use the gift cards in a way that benefits them the most. There is also a new toy drive and distribution to children of wounded warriors. We also provided new backpacks and school supplies to over 1,000 children from pre school to high school. Both the parents and children we so happy. Heartbeat also supplied Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner to Wounded Warrior families and National Guard families.