Helping veterans thrive as civilians

Volunteering in non-profit service organizations helping veterans make transition

Thousands of veterans in Northeast Ohio are easing their transitions to civilian life by volunteering in non-profit service organizations founded by fellow veterans and designed to make use of skills honed in military service.

Chief among those organizations are Team Red, White & Blue, The Mission Continues and Team Rubicon. All of them were founded in the wake of post-9/11 military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq led by the United States and its allies. While their memberships are comprised mainly of veterans, all have some

civilians in their ranks.

“I see groups like these playing significant roles in helping our vets adapt to civilian life,” said Patricia Hall, program manager for the Transition and Care Management Team of the Northeast Ohio VA Healthcare System, an arm of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Members are drawn from a large swath of Northeast Ohio that includes Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Lorain, Erie, Huron, Summit, Stark and Tuscarawas counties.

“With their sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, similar to what you find in the military, these organizations can have a very positive effect on the mental health of the veterans,” Hall said. “To veterans, participation in these groups offers a sense of mission and purpose bigger than themselves.”

Area veterans Tom Beers of Mentor, Don Folino of Willoughby and Harvey Graham-Green of Cleveland can attest to the positive impact these organizations are having on their lives and the lives of fellow veterans.

Beers, 42, is a U.S. Army veteran and outreach coordinator for the Cleveland/ Akron chapter of Team Red, White & Blue, or Team RWB for short.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Tampa. Florida, Team RWB has 212 chapters and 132,000 members nationally. The Cleveland/Akron chapter has 1,200 members.

“Our mission is to enrich the lives of America’s veterans through physical activity and volunteer engagement in communities,” Beers said. “Veterans are mission-oriented individuals. We give them personal missions in a fitness capacity and team missions as volunteers in the community.”

Beers, a fireman in Cleveland Heights, also serves as a liaison between the Cleveland Clinic and fire and emergency medical departments in Northeast Ohio.

“We’re all over the board with what we do in Team RWB, from staging road races and other fitness challenges to dealing with the needs of homeless veterans as personal shoppers and Thanksgiving meal preparation,” Beers said.

Team RWB also has a presence at Cleveland State University, Lakeland Community College, Lorain County Community College and other colleges and universities in the region, Beers added.

Folino, 32, is a U.S. Coast Guard Reserve veteran and leader of the Cleveland 1st Service Platoon of The Mission Continues.

Founded in 2007 and based in St. Louis, The Mission Continues has a stated goal of “empowering veterans facing the challenge of adjusting to life at home to find new missions.” It has 12,000 members nationwide and 145 in the Cleveland platoon.

Locally, The Mission Continues recently has sent its volunteers to do renovations at a charter school in Cleveland. They also installed smoke detectors in homes in Maple Heights. The latter project was done in concert with

the American Red Cross..

Folino, a sales representative for Cleveland Home Title, signed on with The Mission Continues in 2016.

“Life doesn’t stop when your active duty ends and you get home,” Folino said. “I realized I wanted to be more ingrained in the veterans community. What brought me to TMC in the first place were the kickass projects giving vets a chance to serve again. We want to inspire future generations to serve not just in the military but in communities.”

Graham-Green, 33, is the Ohio administrator for Team Rubicon, founded in 2010 by two former U.S. Marines who reacted to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti by organizing a small group of veterans to go to that island nation and assist in its recovery.

The organization, based in Los Angeles, has grown to include 70,000 veterans and civilians who are deployed nationally and internationally in the immediate wake of hurricanes, floods, fires and other natural disasters. Its stated mission is “to provide disaster relief to those affected by natural disasters, be they domestic or international. By pairing the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders, medical professionals, and technology solutions, Team Rubicon aims to provide the greatest service and impact possible.”

Graham-Green served in the British Army from 2002 to 2015. He moved to the U.S. with his wife, a Canadian-born doctor who took a job at Cleveland Clinic.

“I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm and was looking for a way to channel that,” said GrahamGreen, who is studying health sciences at Case Western Reserve University.

His research led him to sign on 14 months ago with Team Rubicon. The organization now has disaster response teams deployed in Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Colorado, California and other states hit by hurricanes and wild fires.

In October 2016, Graham-Green spent three weeks with Team Rubicon units in North Carolina and South Carolina assisting in recovery from damage caused by Hurricane Matthew.

Team Rubicon has about 1,600 members in Ohio

The local chapters of Team Red, White & Blue, The Mission Continues and Team Rubicon recently combined forces to assist MedWish International in its move to a new warehouse headquarters on Cleveland’s near east side.

MedWish International is a nonprofit organization based in Cleveland that takes in donated medical supplies and equipment and re-purposes them as humanitarian aid in developing countries.

“What veterans learn in the military translates well to these environments,” Graham-Green said. “Give us a task, and we’ll form a team and accomplish the mission.”