Northeast Oklahoma Veterans Freedom Tours (NEOVFT) is a non-profit (501c3) organization established to allow Veterans to come together to strengthen and support the bond between those who have served our Country past and present. Northeast Oklahoma Veterans Freedom Tours provides opportunities for Veterans, and their families, to experience our Nation through community travel and extend outreach for any individual in crisis or need. Our goal is to create a community of inclusion that leaves no Veteran behind.
As we are a relatively newer Non-Profit Established in 2016, we are really starting to see the fruits of our labors. Years of ground laying has allowed us to build a reputation as an organization for Veterans to PARTICIPATE IN Traveling our nation together to promote healing. Unfortunately this comes at a VERY high Cost.
When NEOVFT takes a group of Veterans to our Nation’s capital, usually it is a group of 35-40 veterans, and 30-40 other individuals comprised of Medical staff, Media and other staff. Each trip costs roughly $56,000 to $60,000. This includes airfare, charter Buses, Hotel (usually over 40 rooms), Food, various admission fees and any other unforeseen expenses. So, we find ourselves often in a “hustle” mode trying to raise funds what seems 24/7. Several of the fundraising events we have had include potato Bake sales or hosting golf tournaments that all require a lot of time and effort from a dedicated group.
In 2020 NEOVFT took a small group of Veterans to Vicksburg, MS as an inaugural trip for our group. We toured the Civil War sites and spent three days allowing our group to bond. We learned that there are hotels that are affordable and there are Hotels we should likely avoid. We learned how we needed to feed 60 people and what it took to provide meals for everyone. We also learned that we could make this vision a success. We share a story of a young man named BRANDON who taught us a lesson about the Healing power of what we provide for the Vets.
Brandon was a veteran from the Afghanistan combat era, he is not yet 30 yrs old and has a great story. Being approached by Brandon’s mother the night before leaving on this trip she came to with a plea, a plea for us to help her son. She explained that his PTSD was so crippling that he had not left his parents side for months. He had lost custody of his Daughter and was not able to function in what most of us would consider normalcy. He needed a friend he needed something he could grasp onto that could pull him from this state. Brandon had heard about the struggles of prescribed medications like various opiates and others drugs that create a dependency. He did not want that for himself. He needed something better. As, we embarked on this trip we were able to watch Brandon slowly open up to other veterans like himself near his age and those that served in similar eras of combat. Without staff intervention, by the second day of the trip, Brandon was a totally different individual that the one we left town with the previous day. He had found his healing drug and it was others like him that he could befriend and relate to. A therapy that cannot be bought. Brandon Now, has his own home and shared custody of his beautiful 9yr old daughter. He is happy and open and lives a more normal life. He openly admits this is the result of having the door opened to him by our organization. This experience taught us a lesson we could not learn in a classroom. It gave us the motivation to seek out and press forward with our Efforts.
In May of 2021, NEOVFT was the 1st group of veterans to go to Washington DC “POST pandemic” from the state of Oklahoma. We flew out on a Wednesday and returned with all 56 individuals on the following Saturday evening. We had Tulsa Channel 6 News with us on our journey. As a result of their reporting our popularity soared in the NE Oklahoma region. Within a months’ time of returning we had acquired enough of a response to load two trips to capacity. It was a little overwhelming. We know we had our work cut out for us!!
IN July of 2021 on likely the hottest day of the summer, we were introduced to the concept of a possible opportunity to generate enough funds that we could possibly fund much of our needs by partnering up with CATCH-UP to provide Serology Testing in our community. This seemed almost too good to be true. However we needed to pursue the possibility. We were willing to do whatever we needed to.
After a quick introduction and buy in from our Board of directors, we scheduled and planned our first event. We were approved for our start-up Funds for $2500 and were able to purchase a large canopy some fans a small fridge and several small laptops. We designed several signs out of poster board that were not pretty in any definition. Our first event was in the town of Jay, OK at a car show on August 14th, 2021.Not knowing what to expect we hit the streets trying to lure in as many willing participants as we could find. It was HOT, Miserable and gross. This was unnerving, we were going in blind. Dr. Tim arrived and we were quickly acquainted and Took as many notes as he would allow us to. Our very first event we did 33 Tests in a 4hour period!! We were excited.
As time went on we scheduled several other events at our Headquarter building in Pryor, OK. This is a renovated senior center in the heart of town. These events were very educational for us as we continued to learn the importance of Testing and allowing the community to participate for their own benefit. We hosted the only testing event at our local county fair in which we were able to administer over 125 tests. Catch-up was becoming a very regular thing for us to schedule. Several additional events were carried out including a Grand Opening at a large auto dealership in town. Word was getting out and we were able to produce about 30 tests per event. Some more, some less.
In September we received the email regarding the Payout schedule and knew that as staffing shortages were a reality due to Pandemic fallout, we had to make adjustments to our efforts. We knew we had an impact in our community and hesitated to admit we were running out of chances to host efficient and productive events.
As we received our incentive payments we were so excited to see that we were able to pay for all the hotel expenses for our upcoming May2022 trip. Our building has been a valuable tool for us to use and we have even been able to offer space if needed for Catch-Up personnel to utilize needed space for the ability to reach out in our community better. As we enter 2022 we are still very interested in being a very active part of the coalitions in our region and look forward to our continued part of providing additional services to our town and specifically our Veteran community.
Plans are underway for a large event where in we can partner up with other Catch-up partners in our community to host an event that will provide a significant amount of tests for it to qualify for future possible incentives. Northeast Oklahoma Veterans Freedom Tours Values our relationship with the PHIO and Catch-up Oklahoma. We look forward to a lengthy partnership.