My husband and I have created Sweetgrass Wellness to provide wellness retreats and have been doing so for two years. As a 10-year Navy vet, I have always wanted to provide psycho-spiritual experiences for veterans suffering from severe trauma. Using Johns Hopkins and Yale protocols, Sweetgrass Wellness is now positioned to offer this critical service. We initiated a partnership with organizations and leaders within the veteran community to provide plant medicine support for veterans in need of healing.

We collaborate with Dr. Aneel Paulus, a Mayo Clinic physician in Jacksonville, Florida, who serves as our medical advisor. He has deep connections with the veteran community. With him on our team, we will provide support to veterans, and in some cases their partners, to attend our Sweetgrass Wellness retreats. As we all know, many of the people most in need of this are unable to afford the costs involved.

We are seeking immediate private donations to support the treatment of two individuals for the pilot veteran retreat in March. The full cost per person is $5000 for a 5-day retreat. This includes all costs: medical evaluation, therapy sessions in advance of the retreat, airfare, lodging, meals, transportation to/from airport, medical screening, the journey, supportive practices and excursions, and two integration therapy sessions after the retreat.

Please consider supporting this initiative and to share this with others who share an interest in helping veterans recover from their experience. We hope for gifts of $500-$1000 from each supporter to get to the total needed for one or two people. Of course, any amount is appreciated. We are excited to have this program in place and be able to offer it immediately to those in need.

This will be a contribution directly to Sweetgrass Wellness, 100% of which will go to support this program. While this will not be a tax-deductible gift, we will provide donors an overview of the outcomes of their support. Our plan is to pursue nonprofit status to facilitate funding in the future. The process is circuitous and time-consuming. It will help to include reports about positive outcomes with veterans, hence this request to support a pilot veteran version of our program.

Thank you for supporting our deserving veterans.