Warrior Expo

This year at Warrior Expo East, we were proud to partner with a group of 11 high-impact local and national philanthropic organizations who support our War fighters and their families at home and abroad. Medal of Honor Recipient Dakota Meyer, EOD Service Dog Diego and Hillier Ignite Warrior for Warriors Award recipients are just a few of the highlights from this years trade show.

To kickoff the show this year, ADS Founder and Chairman Luke Hillier presented two great organizations with the Hillier Ignite Warrior for Warriors Award. This award recognizes an individual or organization that has provided significant support to veterans in overcoming the challenges relating to the transition to civilian life or the challenges faced by family members of active duty soldiers while deployed.  The award includes a $25,000 grant. This year the deserving recipients chosen were Wounded Wear and Boulder Crest Retreat.  Wounded Wear provides free fashionable clothing and modifications to wounded warriors and raises national awareness of their sacrifice.  Boulder Crest is a rural sanctuary that provides free accommodations as well as recreational and therapeutic activities and programs to help military and veteran personnel and their families recover and reconnect during their long journey of healing.  For more information about the Hillier Ignite Warrior for Warriors Awards and the 2014 recipients please see the video below or click here.

Thanks to our friends at Vertx, we had the honor of hosting Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer at Warrior East last week.  Meyer graciously walked the show floor, shaking hands and taking pictures with many excited supporters, and signed copies of his book, Into the Fire.  Meyer also stopped to talk with the participating organizations in our non-profit row and along with Vertx sold t-shirts in support of his own foundation, FTWGA (For Those Who Gave All), which has a goal of creating awareness of the sacrifices made by the brave men and woman who have served our country.  The USO of Hampton Roads and Central Virginia also helped us organize a special meet and greet for a group of Marines from the Marine Corps Security Force Regiment that were lucky enough to meet Sgt Meyer.  We thank Sgt Meyer for the time he spent with us at Warrior Expo, and deeply appreciate his service to our country and his continued efforts in support of our service members, veterans, and their families.

Another exciting event you might have witnessed while at Warrior last week was the handing over of a K-9 Service dog’s leash.  During setup on Wednesday, Chief Steve Bronson and Axl Rose, presented Wounded Warrior SSGT Brad Lang with his newly trained K-9 Service Animal, Diego.The EOD Warrior Foundation fully covered the costs of training Diego for his new role, to include food and vet bills.  For more on this story check out this post by SSD.

As you can see, many of our featured non-profits have exciting things happening and are constantly working in support of our military and first responder communities.  If you are in the Hampton Roads area, join ADS at the Jogging for Frogman 5K in Norfolk and the Extortion 17 Ride in Virginia Beach – both on August 2nd in support of our partners The 31 Heroes Project, Travis Manion Foundation and the Navy SEAL Foundation.  We also want to give a quick shout out to Sons of the Flag Burn Foundation,  who were unable to join us this year, but whose efforts in support of our nation’s burn survivors we admire and support.   To see all of the non-profits that were in attendance at Warrior East please see below and click their logos to learn more.  We think they do amazing work and look forward to collaborating more with them in the future.