Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Welcome Home is a Willing Warriors and the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run project. The program highlights activities at the Warrior Retreat and issues impacting all Veterans. For questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@willingwarriors.org.
Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
The Ben Ward Story: Creating a Legacy of Service at the Warrior Retreat
Meet Ben Ward, a remarkable young man who began his philanthropic journey at just 10 years old when he donated his birthday money to support Wounded Warriors at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. What started as a modest $60 contribution has grown into more than $12,000 in donations over nine years through creative fundraising efforts, including bake sales, yard sales, and strategic partnerships with veterans' organizations.
Ben's story reveals the extraordinary impact one young person can have when driven by genuine compassion. After being inspired by Captain Theresa Reer's moving speech at a local fundraising event, Ben found his calling supporting Wounded Warriors and their families. His dedication and persistence quickly made him recognizable in the community – people would often donate without even taking his baked goods, simply because they recognized his commitment to the cause.
The ripple effects of Ben's generosity extend far beyond monetary contributions. His example inspired the creation of the Ben Ward Youth Service Award, recognizing young volunteers who demonstrate exceptional service. One of his targeted donations funded volunteer tracking software that enabled the Warrior Retreat to join the Presidential Volunteer Service Award program, creating recognition opportunities for all volunteers.
Now studying animal science at Virginia Tech with aspirations to work in zoo management and animal care, Ben continues to balance academic pursuits with his commitment to service. When asked what volunteering has taught him, his answer was simple yet profound: "It's taught me empathy."
Ready to make a difference in your community? Follow Ben's advice: "Find something that speaks to you, do it. Get out of the house, do whatever you can." Search online for volunteer opportunities near you – you'll discover countless ways to create positive change, regardless of your age or resources.
Good morning. I'm your host, larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run, and this week we're joined by our co-host, John Wall, veteran. Welcome, John. Thank you, larry. And our guest this week is Ben Ward. And he's been volunteering as an ambassador and he's been raising money for us ever since. So, ben, welcome to the podcast.
John Wall:Thank you.
Larry Zilliox:It's good to be here. So tell us a little bit about how you learned about the Warrior Retreat and how you decided that at age 10, you were going to give up your birthday money to this place you'd never been before.
John Wall:Yeah, so there was a concert and you guys were fundraising at the Merrifield Garden Center, I believe Stone and Garden Center, down the road that one. God bless Merrifield Garden Center, I believe Stone and Garden Center. Yes, that one.
Larry Zilliox:God bless, merrifield. We love them, but it wasn't there.
John Wall:Yeah, it's been a while. So there was a concert, you guys were fundraising there. I met somebody, I went up to your stand and then Captain Teresa Rear spoke, gave a whole speech, really inspired me, and then I think I was nine at the time. That was summer of when I was nine. And then a few months later in September, when I turned 10, my mom decided that me and my younger brother, xander, were going to have to volunteer for something, literally anything. We wanted just to volunteer, get something in, get out of the house. So I had like $20 of birthday money and then my mom matched it and then my grandma matched it. So I came up here middle of September with around $60 and it's gone up a lot since then. It's surreal.
Larry Zilliox:So what is your total right now? Now, you just gave me a check on Memorial Day for $500, which I'm happy to say is a restricted donation for the Visiting Chef program. We're going to use that to replace some of our cookware in the Lang House, which is the house that we've had open the longest. So everybody knows, when we first opened opened we were scraping by and a lot of that cookware came from uh thrift stores and a friend of ours was closing up her restaurant and she sold me a number of pots and pans, but we just had our 10-year anniversary, so it was used to begin with. It's 10 years old and when you, you know, called and said, hey, uh, what do you need, boy, that's, that's definitely what we need, so that's a great donation yeah, that's uh.
Ben Ward:First of all, um welcome, and it's a pleasure to meet you, and uh, kudos to mom and grandma, you know, inspiring you to do that, and then also, you know, showing up to that event. Uh, and then you've, you've taken that forward probably what 12, 13 years now.
Ben Ward:It's, uh, it's coming up on eight, eight years, Okay, sorry, it's coming up on nine, so I'm turning 19 in September, okay, and then yeah, yeah, that's great and um so, to see a young man inspired like that and to step out of your comfort zone and come out and actually, you know, make a difference, not just with your financial resources that you're bringing in. You know, put others before self and truly, genuinely care about people and go out there and help organizations within their community.
Larry Zilliox:So yeah, you know, ben, is a testament to the fact that you can part with your birthday money at age 10 and live through it. You know, I'm, I mean, I'm sure it was somewhat traumatic. I mean, you're, you're, you could have spent that money on all sorts of other cool things. But just to be clear, okay, so to date, since you were 10 years old, you've raised for us over $12,000. So talk a little bit about how you went about that.
John Wall:Yeah, okay, so it started out as just bake sales. Every holiday or so Like there would be Memorial Day, Veterans Day, any holiday I can make an excuse to go up to Giant and try and sell things to people. So it would mostly be baked goods like brownies, cookies, lemon bars, stuff like that that my mother and younger brother would help bake. So we would do that a few days before we would wrap it and then we would go up to Giant and set up a little table with a little handmade poster and just see if we could get donations. And then after a couple of years of that, we expanded to doing a yard sale in the summer of 2018 or 19.
John Wall:And that was the biggest money donation at once I've ever gotten, because it was around two thousand dollars. That's amazing that we raised at that yard sale in like the span of eight hours and I remember your mom saying that was the first and last, uh, garage sale.
Larry Zilliox:You were going to have it turned into a lot of work for her. Yeah, and I get it. I get it. But so I can. I can tell you that one you would bake the bread and we would buy the bread. I know my wife really loves the bread. But I'd been up there at the Giant while you had set up your table. Your grandpa was there. The time that I was there was after you were on the cover of the Haymarket magazine and so you were getting to be well-known in the community and it was obvious because people would come by and they would just throw money in and they didn't care about the bread or the cookies or anything. They were just going in doing their shopping and throw more money in when they were on the way out. So it was a really easy fundraising. It was really great. But the bake sales I know your grandfather is in the American Legion and whenever you visit you strong-arm those guys down there for a donation. What's it like trying to get money out of the American Legion?
John Wall:Yeah, so it's honestly not hard for me, at least because my grandpa he was on the board for the VFW and the American Legion, so I would write a letter to each of them, like clockwork, every year, and they have a pool of donation money that they have to like. They're required to donate a certain amount of money every year, and so I would write a letter and they'd just kind of send a check and I'd write a thank you note and so we do that song and dance every year. So you're doing them a favor, exactly.
Ben Ward:He's doing all the work for them. You know, larry, like he's. You know I've been to that group a couple of times at our local IHOP here and you know those guys they're good guys. You know from all eras of different, you know backgrounds of military time and, yeah, he's doing the legwork. So they're like, yeah, this is easy. Yeah, right, let me keep eating my pancakes, that's right.
Larry Zilliox:We're chugging that one off the box and for our listeners, both John and I are part of the American Legion Post 1799 here in Haymarket. Uh, they meet every Thursday, uh, at IHOP and there's even a sign up in IHOP about the post meeting there. So you know, they all the different posts around are really, really supportive of us here at the retreat and uh, it's uh, it's just been wonderful. They've really been supportive and that post is actually down in Richmond where your grandfather lives.
John Wall:Yeah, so he recently passed, unfortunately, over spring break. Oh no, we don't really know what happened to him. He went down for a nap and his heart stopped.
Larry Zilliox:Wow.
John Wall:So we rushed him to the hospital. They did everything they can. They restarted his heart a couple times, but he didn't make it. So he was on the board and now his spot is vacant, and so my family wants me to do it, since I'm 18 now. So they want me. They meet like once a year for, uh, some scholarship fund that they have to, so they want to put me on the board for that scholarship fund to decide they meet up every year and to decide who gets the scholarship right.
Ben Ward:Wow, that's a good thing they're doing that and, first and foremost, I'm really sorry about your grandfather and I, you know, thank you for his service to our country and, um, I hope you guys are doing okay and recovering and, uh, our prayers and thoughts with your family, um, you know I that's an honor. You should take on that, that role, and and help them out and honor your grandfather and and keep that tradition going Right and and then just keep your good work. So I guess for me, um, to try to understand you a little more what is your vision? What is your mission? Do you have a mission statement? Do you have a vision moving forward with what you're doing, or are you just kind of winging it right now?
John Wall:So I'm just winging it. I like to try and help people whenever I can. Wherever I can do what I can.
John Wall:And you're a student at Virginia Tech right finished my freshman year, I'm going into my junior year, which is a little it's a little complicated, but I was homeschooled since seventh grade. So throughout high school I was doing dual enrollment credits at Northern Virginia Community College, manassas campus. Sometimes I would do it online, but I got 29 credits throughout high school. And then at Virginia Tech they have a summer start program where you can take three to six credits over the summer to just get acclimated to the campus, which I'm really happy I did. That made transferring in front, not transferring in, but like starting.
John Wall:Yeah, exactly, moving in and like getting a commuter acclimated to college, like being away from home for a very long time, that made that so much easier. So happy I did that.
Larry Zilliox:You know that's a great program because you get to learn the campus when there's not 35,000 students here, Probably more than that now.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, it just makes a big difference. That's awesome I want to talk a little bit about for our listeners. You know, the first time I met you was Holly was here with us, she was our guest services team lead and it was the end of the day we were leaving and you drove up with your folks and it was you and Xander and I know our listeners can't see you guys, but you know. But you at that point were looking like a surfer dude with the blonde hair and Xander has this crazy curly red hair that it's just like a big curly afro, and so he was not happy to be here. He, he, uh, he was being dragged along and as he's one year younger than you, he's or two, he's three ish, so he was born in june of 2009.
John Wall:I was september 06, okay, so he was.
Larry Zilliox:he was younger than you and because he had wanted no part of what his bigger brother was in. He's never volunteered here. He was here for Memorial Day, which was nice, and I imagine your parents drug him up here for that.
John Wall:Absolutely.
Larry Zilliox:But I want our listeners to know, though, that he does volunteer and he's a major contributor of food to the local food bank. He collects for years he's collected cane goods. I think the neighbors see him coming and they just open the door and start throwing cane goods out on the front yard and then slam the door and he'll pick it all up, and he's a big donor of food. So yeah, tell us a little bit about the work that he does.
John Wall:Yeah, so he also when he turned 10, my parents were like you're going to volunteer, do something. So he picked obviously not wanting any part of what I'm doing he picked the Haymarket Food Bank.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah.
John Wall:Which at the time I think they were called the Food Pantry. I don't really keep up, but he donated just food cans whenever he could, just non-perishable goods. And then it got to the point where he was getting truckloads of stuff from Walmart. He had a guy at Walmart, he had a contact, a guy named Anthony. He would be like anthony, I need more food for the food bank and he would get this like giant, we have this like uh truck back at home and he would get fill the entire bed of that truck with food and it would take us like an hour to load and unload.
Larry Zilliox:And uh, of course we were the ones doing it, because yeah, yeah, Well, and that's a tribute to your folks too, that you know what. What my old man would have said is that they, those boys, were raised right and second that amen, yeah, yeah.
Ben Ward:So we need more young men and women in these generations to see this and to step up, you know, and this is inspiring.
Larry Zilliox:Oh, yeah, for sure. And the thing too, I don't, I don't, you know, I'm not sure how, how it works, where our listeners are, but I can tell you that around here in the public schools there's a volunteer service commitment that's required to graduate, and so we do get a lot of kids that volunteer on the property. We sign off on the letter and get them those credits. So at least we're seeing that from the standpoint of an educational purpose, that they're being at least introduced to the concept of volunteering and giving back.
Ben Ward:Well, kudos to the school system for doing that. I didn't even know that existed. Yeah, that's good yeah.
Larry Zilliox:So Captain Rear came and stayed with us back in 2016, I think and she was an Army captain, I think physical therapist was at a forward operating base and it came under attack and she was severely injured and and when she came to us she was learning to use a walker and she went through a just a ridiculous number of operations and I'm happy to say that, you know, in these last years, when I've seen her, she's walking and now, married to her Australian Army officer, she met when he was stationed here at the embassy and we're very happy for her, but we had invited her out and she was the inspiration. I know you're still in touch with her. Yeah, just a wonderful, wonderful story. What do you think kids need to know about the Warrior Retreat? As far as kind of what inspired you to think of us? I mean, there's plenty of places you could have. You know animal shelters. Like you know, zander, you could have gone to the food bank, but what do you think they should know about here at the Warrior Retreat? But what do you?
John Wall:think they should know about here at the Warrior Retreat. Yeah, so the Warrior Retreat is all about helping other people the most selfless thing imaginable, just helping our veterans. And my grandpa was a veteran. He's technically my step-grandpa. My other grandpa, my maternal grandpa, was also a veteran and then my paternal grandfather was also a veteran, so I've been around veterans my entire life and I just wanted to do something, anything to give back to all of the sacrifices that they've made.
Larry Zilliox:So Ben would normally call, or mom would call and say Ben has money for you. He wants to know what you want to do with it, because Ben does not give general donations or unrestricted donations. He wants to know what everything is going to be used for. So sometimes it goes towards equipment for the grounds team. This last amount went for the kitchen.
Larry Zilliox:So one year Sarah, our executive director, said hey, what we really need is this program that keeps track of volunteer hours, and Ben gave us the money to be able to lease it it forward. We can track our volunteer hours, which then enabled us to become a volunteer service organization. That is part of the presidential volunteer organization program that was founded by uh, the very first, george bush and his thousand points of light foundation. And so each year, our volunteers, they track their hours. If you have a hundred hours or more, you get a bronze medal certificate signed by the current sitting president, and then it's 250, you get silver, over 500, you get a gold, and so one of the things that this program enabled us to do not only provide this for our volunteers, but we could identify some of the youngest volunteers that have the most hours, and we then created the Ben Ward Youth Service Award. There you go, and he gives it out each year. That's amazing. So what was that like? Remember the first time you gave that?
John Wall:I do. I was terrified because I think the kid was either a little bit younger or the same age as me and he was like five or six inches taller. So I'm standing next to him in this picture and he's supposed to be like a year or two younger and he's towering over me and I'm standing here with this plaque like a little like terrified. But it was surreal. When you guys told me that you weren't going to name an award after me, sure, yeah, well, I mean, it's so fitting, it's common sense right there.
Ben Ward:Right, you pay it forward, you know, as I said earlier, and you take care of others and in so many different ways you get so many things back that you don't even realize, right, and it's just perfect. It's to say, hey, we recognize what you've done and we're going to help you out. You know, and we know we have your family right, we look at everybody here as family, you know, especially our volunteers, because they are just a lot of. These folks come in and pour their hearts out here. So, yeah, that's that's great that y'all did that.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, I mean, it just was kind of a no brainer. I have usually one good idea a month and I think that was like March of I don't know four years ago.
Ben Ward:That's it. Just one, larry. That's it. Tap out. That's it, I'm done.
Larry Zilliox:That's it I put the brain in like relax mode and I'm done.
John Wall:Yeah.
Larry Zilliox:So that's an exciting time for us. We usually do it around when we have the volunteer service awards. Ben is nice enough to come back from college or we'll set it up. So he's here in town and they don't live very far from the retreat either, which is really, really nice.
Ben Ward:I'm excited to see what comes next from you. You know you're young still and you're just, you're creative, you're out there doing stuff and now you have a huge network that you're getting ready to tap into at Virginia Tech, and the sky's the limit for you. So it'd be interesting to see kind of you know as years progress, where you go and what you do.
John Wall:So what's your major there? So I'm an animal science major. It's technically called animal and poultry science because they had to combine the animal science and poultry science departments for funding for the poultry science. Because they had to combine the animal science and poultry science departments for funding for the poultry science.
Larry Zilliox:So you're raising chickens yeah, Okay cool.
Ben Ward:Hey, we need some eggs around here.
Larry Zilliox:And what's the dream there? Do you want to be a veterinarian, or you want to own a farm, or what is it? What is it?
John Wall:So the veterinarian route was what I wanted to do going in, yeah, yeah, but. And then so we would. There's our advisors and they would set up meetings, speakers to speak about like all of these different career paths. And then there's a career day so you can go in talk to somebody about, like what you want to do. And it was like, oh, vets have to take so many different classes so I would be taking on like an extra year because I've been able to skip a year, so I would have to tack on an extra year, probably take 16 to 18 credits a semester, probably go into a little bit of debt. I'm grateful that my parents are able to pay for university right now, but vet school is so expensive.
Ben Ward:Yeah, it's ridiculous.
John Wall:And, yeah, it's a minuscule acceptance rate, so you're not even remotely guaranteed to be even on the wait list, like you're lucky to be on the wait list after three years of applying. It's yeah, it's like a 0.5 acceptance rate for some places. Uh, every place is different, which is also another thing. That was rough because each different vet school there's less than 40 in the entire country for vet schools and each one has different requirements. So, like some require physics, some require organic chemistry, some require other things.
John Wall:But you know, not all of them require the same thing and you want to apply to as many as you can, get as many feelers out there, because you know, there's such low acceptance rate.
Larry Zilliox:Right.
John Wall:But right now I want to go into something with zoos and animal sanctuaries like an animal care. I want to be caring for the animals, making sure they're all healthy and happy. So right now I'm doing an internship over at the Leesburg Animal Park. Okay, so I'm over there twice a week from 8 to 4, cleaning up stalls, grooming the animals, making sure they're fine, feeding them, getting their diets ready, checking their water and then this most recently, I got to do a training session with a prehensile tail porcupine, which is different than the normal quote-unquote normal African crested porcupines. That you see the prehensile tail porcupine, which is different than the normal quote unquote normal African crested porcupines. That you see the prehensile tails. Of course everybody knows that.
Ben Ward:Yeah, of course, I just don't get around them.
John Wall:Yeah, no, the prehensile tails are actually a little more dangerous because their quills are barbed, so you would have to either snap it off and like figure out, or like go to the ER or something and figure out how to get it out, or push it all the way through, which is miserable.
John Wall:But they have tails like long, muscular tails and their faces are so much cuter. Um, I love them. And I got to go and do uh desensitization training with her because uh, one of the trainers is trying to get her to be able to do like shows and animal talks with her, but she's nervous around new people. So after months and months of working up to it with her and making sure she's comfortable, I got to go in there, feed her and, like we call it stripping, we just take all the mulch out, put new mulch in, and she loves to try and eat the plastic bag that the mulch is in and she was very angry that I wouldn't let her eat the plastic bag. So when I picked it up, she climbed up the sticks to like the top of her habitat and climbed onto my shoulder to try and reach over me to get the bag.
Larry Zilliox:Well, who even knew that you could train a porcupine?
Ben Ward:I mean, yeah, not me.
John Wall:Wow, okay, you can train anything, if you try hard enough. I guess, yeah, my wife will agree with that.
Larry Zilliox:Well, listen as we kind of wrap things up here. What's the one thing you want to leave our young listeners with about volunteering and what it's meant to you to be to find a way to give back?
John Wall:Yeah, it's. It's taught me empathy. So just get out, do something. Anything, find somewhere. If you throw in volunteering opportunities into Google, it'll spit out hundreds of things in your vicinity. So find something that speaks to you, do it. Get out of the house, do whatever you can. Donate as much as you can with within reason, sure sure, well listen.
Larry Zilliox:Thanks a lot, john.
Ben Ward:I'm glad you got to meet ben yeah, it's an honor and we we're glad to have you here, ben, and look forward, like I said earlier, see what you do and get to know you a little better, and we'll be here.
John Wall:So thanks for coming out yeah, yeah, thanks for having me well, listen.
Larry Zilliox:uh, listeners, we'll have another, another podcast next Monday morning at 0500. You can find us on all the major platforms. We're on YouTube and Reese Across America, so like and subscribe and thanks for listening.
