Christopher Gould, facilities manager for Covenant Health System in Lubbock, shares the valuable and moving work that the region’s Caregiver Resource Group (CRG) does to support veterans in Texas.
The mission of the Operation Military Appreciation Committee (OMAC) Veteran CRG is to help drive community at Providence by amplifying the voice of veterans and prior military caregivers via a connected and empowered community. We strive to create a local forum to honor and recognize our military/veteran patients and caregivers within the Texas Region and the community.
Key areas of focus include:
- Identifying and honoring veteran patients and caregivers
- A special American flag arm band is placed on the patient to help others recognize their service
- A member of OMAC will place a garden flag in the room that depicts the patients branch of service
- Assisting veterans/military personnel in the community while collaborating collectively with other regional entities helping/serving veterans
- Veteran Caregiver display cases – Placing display cases at Covenant Medical Center and Covenant Children’s Hospital main lobbies to showcase and honor veteran caregivers. Recipients are nominated for this display of honor.
- Bringing awareness to the Texas Region about veterans and military caregivers needs and challenges
- Honor walks for veterans after their passing – Draping flags over the bodies for transporting out of the room and down to the morgue, assisted via Security
- Military branch birthday celebration – Pre-COVID, provided cookies and punch to celebrate branch birthday, currently working with Dietary to provide a free cake/treat to the veteran for their branch birthday
- Sponsoring veterans to attend programs for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders – Partnering with local organizations to provide these services free of charge
- Sending care packages to deployed soldiers – Unit is nominated based on connection to Covenant (i.e., caregivers’ family member, patients’ family member, etc.)
- Homeless veterans and military personnel food pantry – Greatest needs for this region are crackers, snacks or “hoggy bait,” canned goods, chips, and fruits
- Veterans’ clothes closet within Covenant Medical Center and Covenant Children’s Hospital – Most common requests are socks, blanket, and t-shirts. These are from hospital unit sock and blanket drives.
- Veterans letters to Santa – Providing Christmas gifts for the veteran and their family. We spend the remainder of budget split between the list of veterans.
- Veterans and military personnel educational training classes – Offering transitional training to help with applying for jobs, resume building, and communication. Accomplished with 1:1 coaching from caregivers.
- Transportation to and from medical appointments – Local transport company has agreed to free shuttle rides for all veterans that are needing transportation to the VA.
Membership for OMAC is not exclusive to service members and accepts anyone with the same mission, and vision of wanting to help honor those that have served and those that do serve. Currently, we have 42 members and are supported throughout the hospital by nursing unit, house supervisors, Security, and our administration. Their help is key to us being able to bring this service to the patients, and caregivers.
Below are some fun Facebook posts that were key highlights for OMAC over the past year.
https://www.facebook.com/19207334536/posts/10158703227724537/
https://www.facebook.com/19207334536/posts/10158662475599537/
https://www.facebook.com/19207334536/posts/10158161894054537/We conducted the first hospital unit sock and blanket drive this year and the response from our caregivers was wonderful. We received enough donation of socks and blankets that we provided 100 stockings to Veterans in the community as well as started the veteran clothes closets at Covenant Medical Center and Covenant Children’s Hospital. We partner with Hospice of Lubbock to send these stockings out to the local VA, VetStar a local Veterans assistance program, and the hospice patients in the community. With the joint efforts of Hospice of Lubbock and OMAC we raise money and bring donations to the veterans food pantry that is located within Hospice of Lubbock. These donations go out to veterans within the community that need assistance.
Veterans Letters to Santa is probably our biggest event at the end of the year. The past two years OMAC provided gifts to veterans and their families via these letters. OMAC takes the remaining budget for the year and uses it to purchase these gifts. The requests typically are fairly simple. This year OMAC provided Christmas gifts to 14 families. Not every item on the lists is given, but we do spend the same dollar amount per family.
In 2021, OMAC had the great honor of attending the two-day For Love of Country and Freedom event. The event started with the Don Caldwell-produced Gold Star concert. Day 2 was the dinner in which OMAC sponsored 2 tables. The keynote speaker was the only living WW II Medal of Honor Hero, Woody Williams. This fundraiser helps support the local community by:
- Seed monies for a new state veteran cemetery, as well as a new Veteran’s Court
- Fund the refurbishing of the Lubbock Area Veteran’s War Memorial
- Fund the three Veterans’ Advocacy group — the American Legion, Purple Heart Chapter 0900, and VFW Post 2466. Money is needed to take care of their members who need financial support for medical care and daily living expenses, like helping with utility bills and mortgage payments, as well as addressing issues like PTSD and veteran suicide
- Create a fund for the new Monument of Courage to cover expenses over the next three years
- Support the expansion of the national Character Development Program of the Medal of Honor Society, teaching our youth the principles of leadership including selfless service
More info
Please contact Christopher if you have any questions or would like to support OMAC.