Building Bridges Veterans Initiative
Uniting Food, Friends, and Veterans
Hosting veteran communities of mutual support, camaraderie and gratitude around complimentary meals sites across New England
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Our Mission
The Building Bridges Veterans initiative is an expanding movement whose mission is to address veteran social isolation, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress and suicide risk that so often accompany military service. Seeking ways to genuinely thank veterans for their service, Building Bridges creates veteran communities around a weekly or monthly meal, resulting in an organic development of peer support and mutual healing.
Among the most misunderstood segments of American society, military veterans have tragically been marginalized from the very homeland they risked their lives to protect.
Your involvement in the movement—by financial contribution, by volunteering at one of the meal sites, or simply by informing a veteran you know about a nearby community—has already meant the world to the more than 1,500 veterans who participate.
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Building Bridges
37 Chestnut Street, Springfield, MA 01103
Meet the Vets
Norman and Gail LeClair- Ludlow, MA
Norman was enlisted in the Army and served in the Vietnam War “67-68”. Meeting Gail through a friend they soon feel in love and got married at the age of 25; 6 months later he was drafted. Uprooted from Massachusetts and being stationed in Fort Carson Colorado, Norman remembers it being hard to get use to the cold. Times were tough for Gail as well. Working as a Registered Nurse in a Springfield Hospital, Gail went to school at night to keep busy. She recalls having to listen to the war stories and protesting from her fellow classmates who were much younger than her- “It was hard sitting through it, everyone seemed to hate the war and I had someone I loved over there fighting in it!” Norman recalls communicating with wife through radio transmission and meeting with her in Hawaii for a few days while on RNR which resulted in their wedding rings getting stolen-they ending up using the little bit of funds left to replace hers at a kiosk in the airport. Post War Norman worked at Smith and Wesson as a tool maker engineer. Both Gail and Norman volunteered with the Massachusetts Support Foundation at The 99 Restaurant in Springfield, MA until it closed.
“The lunches brings us together with colleagues who we have a lot in common with. Being apart of something is very important .” – Gail