A group that was formed by military wives in 2006 to help wounded soldiers is reaching out to Iowa veterans. Robin Kelleher is the president of the “Hope for Warriors” organization. She says “We have 10 different programs that begin at bedside, and so we are at the hospitals when our servicemembers come in from Iraq or Afghanistan. We work with the families on the onset of injury to sort of help alleviate some of the financial pitfalls that they may see on that path to recovery. And then later into the recovery process we offer other programs.” Kelleher talks in more detail about the organization’s programs. “Spouses scholarships, financial needs assistance grants, we have warrior’s wish program that grants wishes to severely wounded, we have a team that supports and trains our servicemembers to do athletic endeavors despite their different injuries. At the end of that cycle you would see a program called Above and Beyond,and that’s where we really work in that transition piece for them,” Kelleher says.

The group has joined in a partnership with the Casey’s Convenience store chain to help raise awareness about their programs. “We have a website that’s very comprehensive on our different programs, and that’s hope-for-the-warriors-dot-org (hopeforthewarriors.org). If you go to Casey’s this month and buy one of their large specialty pizzas, there’s a sticker on the outside of the box that gives you all of our contact information. And for every large specialty pizza they sell, they are donating one dollar to Hope for the Warriors,” Kelleher says. She says anyone who wants to help the effort can make a donation. “We have people who do beneficiary events for us allt he time from lemonade stands to putting on runs in their own community. You can certainly make a donation on-line,” Kelleher explains. “As of this weekend, if you text ‘Warriors’ to 20222, you can make a 10-dollar donation.” The organization is headquartered in North Carolina, but Kelleher says they are expand their presence across the country in states like Iowa that have soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

(Dar Danielson/Radio Iowa)