Nonprofits: Go to work giving back p1 - Military Transition - Military Times EDGE

Leslie Lightfoot, Terry Jelliffe and Maritza Meza Lima no longer wear the uniform, but they continue to serve in their civilian careers. The three Army veterans work with nonprofit organizations that help fellow U.S. military veterans — a population of more than 23 million and growing, according to the Veterans Affairs Department.

Lightfoot is chief executive officer of Veteran Homestead Inc., a foundation she started to provide medical, psychological and spiritual care to veterans.

Jelliffe is chief executive officer of the All Veterans Association, a new organization developing programs to assist former service members with housing, medical care and educational opportunities.

Meza Lima is director of volunteers for the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a nonprofit that aims to close the gap between what the military provides and what wounded war heroes and their family members need during long recuperation periods at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

Those who consider a similar career path “need to have a lot of patience with bureaucracy and stuff that makes no sense,” Lightfoot said. “But it’s really rewarding. I can’t imagine doing anything but helping veterans.”

Do the right thing

Lightfoot served as a medic from 1967 to 1970. She separated as an E-5 and, after earning degrees in psychology, began working as a post-traumatic stress disorder counselor. Some unexpectedly savvy real estate investments enabled her to buy a rehabilitation center in Leominster, Mass., in 1987. She turned it into a facility to aid veterans with addiction and psychological issues.

Six years later, Lightfoot established her foundation and expanded her reach. Today, her organization supports three facilities for veterans in Massachusetts, including one that Lightfoot says is the first private hospice program for veterans.

Veteran Homestead also runs a mobile medical unit for veterans in central Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a center for homeless veterans in Puerto Rico and an 80-acre working organic farm in New Hampshire where veterans fresh from combat can unwind before re-entering the “real world.”

Lightfoot’s latest project is a training and rehabilitation center that she plans to open on 10 acres of land donated by Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Mass.

The association and community college are partnering to provide recovering war heroes with a place to live with their families while they take college courses and get medical and psychological treatment.

This latest endeavor points to another quality Lightfoot says is vital to working with veterans: optimism. “We need $8 million” for the center, she said. “I don’t know where that’s going to come from yet — but I’m sure it will.”

First, believe in yourself

Confidence is another important quality, said Jelliffe, a former staff sergeant who is CEO of All Veterans Association.

“Don’t be held back by the rank you held,” Jelliffe said.

Jelliffe racked up more than 13 years of active-duty service with the Army and National Guard before separating in 1989. The Indiana native’s civilian career path included executive positions with the National Guard Association of Indiana and consulting work with military associations and defense contractors. In the summer of 2007, she was tapped by retired Lt. Gen. James Vaught to help launch the AVA, which is headquartered in Arlington, Va.

Starting an association “is a long and tedious process,” Jelliffe said, but the organization’s first project is already underway.

The AVA has partnered with Quads LLC to build condominium units near military bases. These will enable war veterans to live with their families and others in similar situations while they receive medical treatment and further their educations.

The first units are scheduled to open in September in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Similar projects are planned near Camp Lejeune, N.C., Fort Lee, Va., and military installations in Texas and Oklahoma, among other locales.

Jelliffe concedes that her career field can be frustrating, but she has persevered by keeping her sense of purpose.

“If you do things for the right reason, good things will happen,” Jelliffe said. “You have to stay focused on why you’re doing it.”

All you can do is try

Meza Lima agrees that focus is vitally important.

She wears a number of hats as the Yellow Ribbon Fund’s director of volunteers.

One day, she may drive almost 400 miles round trip from the fund’s headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to pick up donated toys and books to distribute to the families of wounded war heroes.

On another day, she may call on her 250-strong force of volunteers to help organize a party, provide a ride or baby-sitting services, or even pull off a last-minute wedding.

On Valentine’s Day, Meza Lima and her volunteers threw a wedding for a 23-year-old Army corporal who, a month before his scheduled return home to get married, lost both of his legs in a bombing in Iraq. “Something new comes up every day, and it requires my attention right then and there,” Meza Lima said.

Meza Lima joined the Army in June 2001 after graduating from high school in Banning, Calif. She worked in the supply field and separated as an E-4 in 2004 after completing a tour of duty in Kuwait. After moving to the Washington, D.C., area last summer, Meza Lima began volunteering at Army Community Services at Walter Reed.

There, she met a caseworker who put her in touch with the then-executive director of the Yellow Ribbon Fund. Meza Lima became the fund’s first director of volunteers.

“I was very lucky,” Meza Lima said. “I wasn’t really looking for a job.”

Meza Lima is working on a degree in criminal justice and said she’s not sure where she’ll be in five years. But it’s likely that she’ll continue to help veterans, a job she says she absolutely loves.

“Every time we hear of somebody that needs help, we try,” she said. “All we can do is try.”

(Originally published May 5, 2008)