WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The Community Green Zone program is a partnership that helps veterans by connecting them with resources and guiding the community to invest in them.
"There was a recent study by VA and Blue Star Mothers which showed that in communities with a strong mental health backbone and a good community reinvestment in their veterans, there was 11.3% decrease and suicidality rates," cofounder Loran Osborne said. "But in communities that were lacking those things, there was a 1.3% increase. So we're talking about a difference of 13% approximately here. That promotes the idea that centralizing the partnership and reutilizing skills and reinvigorating those veterans, and pulling them out of the self-isolation mindset not only benefits the veteran and diminishes suicidality, but it also benefits the community because they have people who are used to intensely investing in what they care about. And now you've created a target for that community to reach, and the veterans care about getting there.
The program began in southeast Kansas in 2020.
"The more we can invest in our veterans, the more we veterans are investing in the community," Osborne said.
The programs take after the Green Zone model.
"A green zone is a place inside a war conflict where opposing parties can get together and mutually come to agreements that can diminish the hostilities and bring negotiations to the forefront to lessen the impacts of the war and provide humanitarian aid and mutually beneficial conclusion," Osborne said. "It's like taking that and transitioning that into an environment where veterans come home, especially combat veterans, and they've done their country service, and they don't know how to reinvest that idea back home, so they isolate, play video games, work a hard blue collar job that keeps their head down. I was working with a veteran today. He said, 'I'm just like any other veteran. I work, eat, and sleep.'"
They hope the training spreads across communities.
"We teach an idea of each one, teach on," Osborne said. "It's a military concept that says if you know how to do something, you can teach two people, and those two people can teach two people each on their own and exponentially the learning grows until it becomes a communitywide understanding."
Osborne says the training is for everyone, and they learn how to walk with a veteran to get whatever help it is they need.
"Everyone can be an advocate," Osborne said. "You can advocate for yourself, and you can advocate for others as long as you understand the process and the people that you're advocating for. You can reinvest yourself so that feeling of diminished importance isn't there, that what you do now is just as important as what he did in the military, but it's in support of your new squad, your new team, your new home."
Dean Epley at the Red Cross went through the training. Although the Red Cross has always provided resources for veterans, this opens a new door.
The Green Zone is also a network of resources. For example, if the Red Cross can't help them, the organization can point them in the right direction and help them get there.
"It makes it more visible, and it gives more training on the other services that are available through other organizations, not just the Red Cross, so that we know where to send somebody if we can't help them with a particular problem," Epley said.
The Red Cross has a Hero Care Center that can be reached at 877-272-7337. There is also an app available. The next green zone training is in Fort Scott on April 12 at 8:30 a.m.
