Building Hope and Healing: An Update on the Grand Lodge at Warrior Retreat at Bull Run

Discover the heartwarming journey toward healing and camaraderie as we unveil the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run's Grand Lodge, a six-bedroom beacon of hope for our veterans. I am here with Dianne Polk to give you a quick update on the build.

As we count down to the ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 18th, Dianne and I are brimming with enthusiasm captured in every word of this episode. From ADA-compatible design considerations to the transformative efforts of our amazing volunteers, we're chronicling the evolution of a space where our heroes can unwind and connect. We extend a heartfelt invitation to you, our listeners, to join in the celebration of the Grand Lodge's completion. Our Ribbon Cutting is at noon on Saturday, May 18th.

You can also help with the completion of the Grand Lodge by donating something on our Amazon Kitchen Wish List. Thanks for listening and for your support.

Transcript

Warrior Retreat Grand Lodge Update

Larry Zilliox 0:15

Good morning. I'm your host, larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run, and this morning Dianne Polk, our Director of Operations here at the retreat, is joining me for a short podcast about where we're at with the Grand Lodge built know, we've been building this six-bedroom 6,000-square-foot house with 2,000-square-foot activity room which is going to be used not so much for families but for getting groups of veterans in for counseling, training, all sorts of different programs. So we're really excited about it and we're closing in on the ribbon cutting. So I asked Dianne to join us and just give us sort of an update of where we're at. So are we going to be ready, diane?

Dianne Polk 1:07

Good morning, larry. Thank you for having me this morning. Yes, we are going to be ready. Everything is looking fantastic. We are very much close to schedule. The whole inside of the home is done. The kitchen is in, appliances are hooked up, they've done one of the first cleanings and it looks amazing. Inside. We are expecting furniture delivery later this week and into early next week, as well as some phenomenal desks-type table setups that we'll be using and setting up in the activity room for classroom-style training, which we're very excited about that. The actual outdoor pavilion pizza oven is being delivered today, so that's a very exciting thing to do day. So that's a very exciting thing to do. The front of the home, the leveling, the soil has been brought in and everything is really starting to take shape. We've had wonderful volunteer groups come in. They're going to be helping out with landscaping, seed and straw, and the final touches of the house are really coming together. I do believe that we are right on schedule.

Larry Zilliox 2:22

Okay.

Dianne Polk 2:23

And it's a beautiful home and we're just grateful to be in the position we are today. Everything looks like where it goes.

Larry Zilliox 2:30

All right. Well, let's talk about the kitchen, because I'm very excited about the kitchen. Just a very quick rundown for our listeners. The kitchen is 554 square feet. It has a six burner and a flat top gas range. It has a wall oven with French doors, so not the fold down one where I, because of my I'm only six foot and so I get why are you laughing and I get burnt when I lean over that door. So we opted for French doors so I can step right in and pull out whatever's in the oven. There we have two dishwashers, we have two French door refrigerators, microwave and, under the counter, counter warmer, as well as three farm sinks with garbage disposals.

Larry Zilliox 3:22

There are 23 cabinets in the kitchen. There are 23 drawers and there's 54 feet of counter space, and with fantastic lighting not only pendant lights that are nice and bright for working on that counter, but underneath cabinets there's really nice and I've never seen it before strip LED lighting that just lights up the whole counter. Often in a lot of houses you know that counter space underneath those cabinets is dark and doesn't get used for all that much other than just storing stuff. But every inch of that counter is well lit and we're going to be using it when we do events like Home Away From Home. It's really a nice catering kitchen.

Dianne Polk 4:10

It is, and we're excited to be able to increase the capacity of the warriors that are able to come for Home Away From Home Thanksgiving meal and just being able to increase the capacity of warriors that we can help through our Moral Injury program that we're hosting here. That's another 10 to 12 warriors that are going to be able to benefit from that, as well as the family setting there. So we're really looking forward to that being able to open soon.

Larry Zilliox 4:39

Yeah, the house itself six bedrooms. We have two bedrooms on the ground floor that are ADA compatible, and one will have a queen, but the other bedrooms will all be extra long twins so that we can have more warriors. Stay Correct, um, upstairs. There's no elevator in this house. Uh, it's only two floors, where our other houses are both three floors and each has an elevator. But there's really no need for an elevator in this house because we're just putting our wheelchair-bound warriors on the first floor and I would probably say that saved $20,000, $25,000 by now putting in an elevator. The pavilion which is out back, adds another 2,000 square feet of patio space. There's a fire pit that's going in as we speak and, like you said, they're delivering the pizza oven. I'm really excited about that. I don't want to go watch them put it in because it makes me very nervous, it's very heavy and but I'm sure they know what they're doing.

Dianne Polk 5:49

Our builder, tj, is awesome and yes, he'll see, and he can't contracting yet TNT contracting big.

Larry Zilliox 5:56

shout out to them. They're fantastic and he's really doing a great job for us. And then that outdoor kitchen. It's really nice because it has an inline propane grill. There's going to be a space for one of our big green eggs, another farm sink with a garbage disposal, refrigerator pretty much everything you need for a complete outdoor kitchen. Correct, that's self-sufficient, so we don't have to go back into the house to get this, to get that. We're really looking forward to that going in.

Larry Zilliox 6:26

And that was the patio, the pavilion, the kitchen was all the result of a very generous local veteran who donated the money for us to build that. Originally it was just going to be a deck on the back of the house, but it's turned into something pretty amazing which we're calling the Patriot Pavilion. Correct, will be done as well, I think, by the time we do the ribbon cutting. So ribbon cutting is Saturday, may 18th and it begins at noon, correct, so people want to come a little bit before that. People want to come a little bit before that? Uh, we'll have volunteers with for parking and you'll be directed on where to go.

Dianne Polk 7:09

but if you show up at noon, park and then try to get over you, you could miss no, because we're doing presentation of colors yeah at noon, so it literally starts at noon perfect um, there'll be some music going on and, and yeah, it'll be ongoing at the time. We have some military members, active duty from Fort Belvoir coming. Yeah, we have a warrior who has stayed at the retreat coming to speak, so definitely be here before noon.

Larry Zilliox 7:41

Yeah, and then we'll have the ceremony, we'll do the ribbon cutting and then we'll invite the public in to tour the house. Right, it'll be. It's just going to be a great, great time. I can't wait.

Dianne Polk 7:54

It's very casual. It's very casual. Just come, and then you'll be able to walk through the home.

Larry Zilliox 8:01

Yeah, and if you want to see the Lang House, we'll also be available to tour. Right, there'll be plenty of staff and volunteers on hand to explain the different programs, to talk about the families that come and stay with us from Walt Reed and Fort Belvoir and what a typical guest stay is like. So we'll have some guest stay coordinators here, right, and some of our previous guests, which is really great. I know we'll probably see some service dogs.

Dianne Polk 8:32

Mm-hmm.

Larry Zilliox 8:36

It's going to be a great afternoon. The weather is going to be fantastic.

Dianne Polk 8:39

Yes, it is. We can already see far, far ahead.

Larry Zilliox 8:41

Yes, yes, I would keep our fingers crossed there. Please, if you're looking for something to do on a Saturday, may 18th, at noon, ribbon cutting, come tour the house, enjoy it and you'll see what the community has given us. Really, it's all. Penfed Foundation has given us a sizable grant. The rest of the money we have has been donated by the community. Absolutely, we can't do this without community support. Now we're in the final stages. In the show notes you'll see a link to an Amazon wishlist that we have for items for the kitchen. So it's nice to have this beautiful new home, but it's hard to use it if we don't have the things that everybody else has in their kitchen.

Dianne Polk 9:32

Right, well, you need the things to be able to create the great meals for the warriors. Yeah.

Larry Zilliox 9:37

Yeah, so the furniture is going in. The furniture is going to be great. We're just down to that final time when we need help with the items for the kitchen, and if you want to contribute and help us out, that's great. You'll find the list, a link to the list, in the show notes. We certainly can use all the help we can get, and then ongoing support as well, because this just adds more costs to our operational budget that we have almost a third more utilities and cleaning costs and just all of those expenses that it takes to run a house.

Update on Exciting Times

Larry Zilliox 10:24

It'll be a little bit different because we're not going to have a family in there every week or three weeks out of the month, but we will have groups and so it's. It's sort of similar. We'll just need need help and support along the way and when it comes to the kitchen items too, I sort of almost need a lot in the main kitchen, but we're going to need another set for the outdoor kitchen too, because, again, we can't be running in and out whenever we need something because we're cooking out there. So all the support you can give us, that would be great. Diane, thank you for joining me real quick for this to give an update. We're 26 days away.

Dianne Polk 11:01

Absolutely. We are definitely in the exciting times. Every day you come in, you have to go look and see what's new, what's complete, and it's like oh wow. So thank you, larry, for having me and for being able to update.

Larry Zilliox 11:13

Yep, our regular episodes are every Monday morning at 5 am, so look for one of those and until then, thanks for listening.