Health: Mental Health

Help Heal Veterans’, Richard Bohls, Takes Home the Silver Medal at the 2019 VA National Veterans Create Arts Competition

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Richard Bohls

Help Heal Veterans has delivered nearly 31 million of these arts and crafts kits to veterans and veteran facilities nationwide, along with active duty military overseas.


WINCHESTER, Calif. (PRWEB)

Help Heal Veterans (Heal Vets), a nonprofit dedicated to serving military veterans by supplying them with therapeutic craft kits, is pleased to announce that HHV veteran crafter, Richard Bohls, has won the silver medal in the 2019 VA National Veterans Create Arts Competition in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

During a two-month stint in the Temple, TX Veterans Affairs hospital Richard was introduced to HHV craft kits where his journey for the VA National Veterans Create Arts Competition began. He won the prestigious award using two Help Heal Veterans combined craft kits; the Westy Clock and the Keepsake Box.

Richard said, “I’m in awe of taking home the silver medal in the national competition, he says he hopes fellow veterans are energized.”

In efforts to make healing affordable for veterans, Help Heal Veterans has relied on monetary and material donations from partners such as Southwest Airlines, La-Z-Boy, and The Elks to provide free therapeutic arts and crafts kits to hospitalized and homebound veterans for generations. These craft kits help injured and recuperating veterans improve fine motor skills, cognitive functioning, manage stress and substance abuse, cope with symptoms of PTSD and TBI, while also improving their sense of self-esteem and overall physical and mental health.

Access to free kits gives him the avenue to be creative and test out different mediums of art. Throughout his creative process with the award-winning piece, he swapped out a multitude of pieces from the Westy Clock to make it one-of-a-kind.

Since inception, Help Heal Veterans has delivered nearly 31 million of these arts and crafts kits to veterans and veteran facilities nationwide, along with active duty military overseas.

CEO of Help Heal Veterans, Joe McClain, said, “Richard Bohls is an example of how veterans can drive their healing into a passion. We are very proud of this accomplishment and to have Mr.Bohls as a representation of Help Heal Veterans during his run at the VA National Craft Competition. A congratulations is in order.”

About Help Heal Veterans

A nonprofit organization founded during the Vietnam War supplies free therapeutic kits to injured servicemen and women and U.S. veterans. The therapy kits often become a part of the patient’s treatment plan, providing a creative outlet for stress and boredom and a way to rebuild confidence and self-esteem. Help Heal Veterans has distributed more than 29 million kits since 1971 from hundreds of craft categories.

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