Helping wounded warriors heal
Help Our Wounded, or HOW, makes a difference in the lives of thousands of veterans
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — There are approximately 86,000 veterans in Palm Beach County, many of whom suffer daily from various service-related injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI).
The HOW (Help Our Wounded) Foundation of South Florida has been serving those Palm Beach County veterans since 2014 by providing them with services that can improve their daily quality of life.
The main mission of the HOW Foundation is to introduce veterans to hyperbaric oxygen therapy as a means of treating various brain injuries suffered by veterans. They also provide financial support to veterans so they can experience the benefits of this therapy.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy administers pure oxygen to the body which increases the blood oxygen in your body, which allows the body to better heal itself by increasing blood flow to areas of the body that have restricted blood flow.
One of the larger corporate sponsors of the HOW Foundation is a small hotel in Delray Beach, Fla., Crane’s Beach House Boutique Hotel & Luxury Villas.
“We’ve been working with the [HOW] Foundation since it started in 2014,” said Adam Artille, Front Desk manager at Cranes Beach House.
Cranes Beach House has hosted a yearly event at their hotel called, Best Bite. The event acts as a fundraiser for the HOW Foundation and for another veteran’s organization, Project Holiday. Proceeds from the event are split between the two foundations.
Project Holiday is an organization in Delray Beach that works with various businesses to collect items that are needed for servicemen and women who are serving our country overseas and are unable to be home for the holidays. They provide collection boxes to various businesses and collect items that they will use to create care packages to send to those in need.
“I remember receiving an awesome care package from [Project Holiday] when I was deployed to Afghanistan,” local Air Force veteran Dante Memmolo said. “I remember it had various snacks and toiletries that were hard to come by in Afghanistan, we were always running out of things.”
Instead of hosting their annual Best Bite event, Cranes Beach House hosted an event Nov. 14 called ‘Tasting at the Tiki.”
The event featured food tastings from three Delray Beach restaurants; Ziree Thai and Sushi, The New Vegan Restaurant and Juice Bar and Papas Tapas.
“I always enjoy that we host a fundraising event every year,” said Martina Zinner, front desk receptionist at Cranes Beach House. “My dad was an Army vet and it’s cool working at a place that hosts an event that helps out so many veterans in our community.”
It will be the 10th year in a row that Cranes Beach House has hosted a fundraiser for local veteran organizations.
This year the HOW Foundation teamed up with Cranes Beach House to host another fundraising event called, Dine for Veterans. The event will run from Monday, Nov. 4 and ends on Veterans day.
Dine for Veterans is a week-long fundraising event where restaurants throughout Palm Beach county will donate a portion of their sales to the HOW Foundation. Restaurants will only donate a percentage of their sales from their scheduled night to the organization.
The participating restaurants include; Another Broken Egg Café, Ellie’s 50’s Diner, La Cigale, Maggiano’s Little Italy, Palm Beach Kennel Club, Tim Finnegan’s Irish Pub, True Restaurant, Valentina’s Pizza and Pasta, and Ziree Thai and Sushi.
“This year, we donated $1,500 to the [HOW] Foundation to support the Dine for Veterans,” Artille said. “I know I will be going to a few of the restaurants throughout the week to help support the veterans in our community.”
The HOW Foundation is donating 100 percent of the funds from the Dine for Veterans program directly to veterans in the community who are in need of the hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the group says.
“I’m going to try to eat at as many of the restaurants as I can,” Memmolo said. “I’ll do anything to help out my fellow brothers and sisters in arms because I know how much the support meant to me when I needed it too.”
Cranes Beach House, the HOW Foundation of South Florida and Project Holiday are all great examples of how communities can come together to support the people who make sacrifices for all of us.
“I love that I’m able to be apart of an organization that gives so much to the veterans in our community,” Zinner said. “Just wish my dad was still here to help support these organizations with me.”
