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 bi-monthly 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 volunteering at one of the meal sites, by making a 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. Meeting Gail through a friend, they soon fell in love and got married; 6 months later, Norman was drafted. Uprooted from Massachusetts, and 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 she: “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 R&R, resulting in their wedding rings getting stolen. They ended up using the little money that had to replace Gail’s ring at a kiosk in the airport. After the war, Norman worked at Smith and Wesson as a toolmaker/engineer. Both Gail and Norman subsequently volunteered with the Massachusetts Support Foundation.
“The lunches brings us together with colleagues who we have a lot in common with. Being apart of something is very important .” – Gail