Disabled, seriously ill children get in on the hunt

experience, as did Nelson Mast, 15, of Fredericksburg.

“This was a lot of fun,” Mast said.

After lunch, the hunters were taken to Spring Mountain near Warsaw.

“All the kids have to do is get here and we take care of the rest,” Scott Meshew said. “We provide food and lodging, and they’re going to get the whole hunting outfits from head to toe: boots, hats, camo.”

The kids and their families are treated to a two-day stay at the hotel and lunch and dinner at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Millersburg. Armed with equipment provided by the organization, the hunters also had a fourhour hunt Saturday morning.

“Landowners bring about 10 people, and we have people who found us through someone else,” Scott Meshew said. “Volunteers aren’t really an issue. Everybody wants to get out and see these kids and see the smiles on their faces. I’m a hunter but I haven’t been in the woods yet, but I’ve been on three different outings with Hunt for Hope.”

Gabe Lau of Dalton and his girlfriend Madeline Frantz of Mount Eaton are volunteers who help out whenever they can. Lau served as a guide for one of the young hunters.

“We helped out with the turkey hunt and had a great time. We were hooked,” Lau said. “It’s awesome seeing these kids having fun, just getting a chance to be outdoors. I enjoy hunting so much, this is a cool way to give other people a chance to enjoy what I enjoy.”

Josh Bergman, a retired

Navy veteran out of North Carolina and member of the veteran’s organization The Fallen Outdoors, which takes veterans hunting outdoors, also volunteers.

“I met Heidi at a convention in Tennessee,” he said. “We got to talking and I met Cooper, and we’ve been friends for about eight months now. We hit it off. We all have the same objective, focusing on kids.”

Scott Meshew noted that all the participating children have serious physical disabilities or illnesses. Nine kids applied for this weekend’s hunt.

“It is hard to pick, because the kids are all deserving to come on a hunt,” he said. “We chose five of the kids because they never hunted before. Getting them into the outdoors was part of the idea of the program.

“Parents hunt, but a lot of times, they don’t know how to get disabled or sick children out in the woods,” he said. “They don’t have the equipment or the means to do it. Through our foundation, we do have the means and the equipment. They’re seeing once they’re here, with a little adaptive equipment, it makes it a little easier for them to take their own kids out hunting.”

He said they even have systems for quadriplegics who can’t use their hands.

“All they have to do is bite down, and it’s just like pulling the trigger,” Scott Meshew said.

For more details about Hunt for Hope, go to: https://www. hunt4hope.org.