The mission of Grace’s Home of Heroes is to provide aid and assistance to eligible, elderly Mississippi veterans and their families who are in need of receiving help with their daily activities with the aim of improving their quality of life.
To that end, the organization is teaming up with the Pine Belt Veterans Task Force to hold its 2020 Benefits Convoy for Military Members and Veterans from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Oct. 7 at The Train Depot, 208 Newman Street in downtown Hattiesburg.
During the drive-thru event, volunteers will be on site to give out bags with household items that veterans may need.
“For myself, starting my business, I was raised by my grandmother and my great-grandmother, so I have a passion for helping elderly people,” said Amber Travis, founder of Grace’s Homes of Heroes. “They’re vulnerable people; once they get older, they don’t have access to a lot of things, or they just need help in general.
“So that is why I target elderly people, because my grandfather is a Vietnam veteran, and I know firsthand because we’ve had to help him get his benefits. I want to make sure that we’re helping those same people that made a sacrifice for us, our country and our freedom.”
During the event, volunteers will distribute bags filled with items such as pamphlets, brochures, pens, pencils and pads.
Included in the bag will be a postcard that veterans can use to list specific additional services or resources they may need from Grace’s Homes of Heroes.
Officials will then follow up with those individuals who fill out the postcards to provide them with those resources.
“If they need more information about VA benefits, we can get them more information about VA benefits,” Travis said. “If they need mental or health care services, service animals, bill pay – things like that – they can specifically tell us, and we’re going to pay for the postage on those postcards and everything.
“They can just put them back in the mail and send them to us, and we’ll follow up with them.”
Officials from Grace’s Home of Heroes also are working with other vendors to get information from those companies, such as the VA.
“Someone from the VA may bring in some pamphlets that have something about benefits,” Travis said. “We’re going to put that information that we get from our vendors into a bag and distribute them.
“And what’s in those bags might be the answers to their questions. They might not need to send their postcard in, but just in case we haven’t given them exactly what they need specifically, they’ll be able to send in the postcard to follow up with them to see what we can do to help them.”
