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From Isolation To Impact: Building Support Beyond the VA with CJ3 Foundation

• Larry Zilliox • Season 3 • Episode 134

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A quiet question—why choose the Army?—opens into a candid story of injury, recovery, and purpose with Eric Thomas, founder of CJ3 Foundation. We dig into how a veteran and first responder-led nonprofit tackles what so many systems miss: putting mental health first, pairing people with real service dogs trained from day one, and showing up as relentless advocates when employers or agencies get in the way.

Eric lays out a simple but demanding model. Before any dog is placed, candidates complete a comprehensive mental health and wellness program that addresses the mind, body, and spirit. Only then does CJ3 pair a Veteran with the right breed and temperament for their lifestyle, from high-drive Belgian Malinois to steady labs or hypoallergenic giants. Training never leaves professional hands; dogs remain in top-tier kennels used by police, military, and federal clients. Handoff is a process, not a moment: a week at the kennel, in-depth handler training, followed by at-home integration and ongoing recertification to prevent bad habits and protect outcomes.

We also discuss the finances and the policy. Through partnerships, CJ3 delivers a fully trained service dog for about $25,000—far less than the long-term costs of unmanaged symptoms, medication stacking, or isolation. Meanwhile, legislation like PAWS and SAVES is inching forward, and CJ3 has pushed to fix exclusions that sidelined reputable providers. Eric argues for a practical line: the VA may not need to fund food and collars, but if a clinician prescribes a service dog, basic veterinary care should be covered to protect the veteran’s lifeline.

Beyond dogs, CJ3’s Field Ops offers safe hunting, fishing, racing, and range days—that rebuild confidence and community for veterans, law enforcement, firefighters, and EMS. The organization scales through ambassadors instead of buildings, runs on volunteers, and invests in people and services over infrastructure. If you’ve got skills in design, web, or fundraising, they can use the help. If you’ve got time, show up at a pop-up and meet the handlers and dogs. And if you’ve got the means, your donation goes straight to the mission.

Enjoyed the conversation and want to support the work? Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who could use it, and leave a review so more listeners can find these stories. Then visit CJ3foundation.org and, if you’re able, hit that donate button.

Larry Zilliox:

Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. And this week our guest is Eric Thomas. He's the founder of an organization nearby in Loudoun County called CJ3 Foundation. And this is a nonprofit, 501c3, that advocates and has a number of excellent programs to support wounded and disabled U.S. service members, veterans, law enforcement, firefighters, EMS and first responders. So they are supporting just a wide selection of not only our military, but also our warriors that I like to say are inside the wire. Eric, welcome to the podcast.

Eric Thomas:

Larry, I appreciate you having me. Great to be here.

Larry Zilliox:

I wish our listeners could see, but he he brought his service dog with him, uh Havoc, which uh is just a sweet dog. He's I he just chilling out right now. Uh but uh if you ever get to go to one of their functions or their activities, you'll see him. And uh he's he's really great. Let me ask you a question I ask a lot of my guests is why would you join the Army and not the Air Force?

Eric Thomas:

So that's an easy question. So I I grew up an obstinate teenager in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the Navy. So they were running around wearing bell bottoms, and I knew that I wanted to join, and the first thing I went up to was it happened to be an army recruiter, and it wasn't Navy. And so at the time I just needed to do anything, not Navy, because my father was Navy and my father-in-law was Navy, and I had to do something different. And um, I grew up watching Army movies, so that's just where I went. Didn't know anything about anything, but that's where I went. When did you go in? Um, 1996.

Larry Zilliox:

Okay. And what was your MOS? What did you do?

Eric Thomas:

I started out as a 19 Delta Cavalry Scout. I basically went to the recruiter and said, I I want to do fun, cool things, drive neat vehicles and shoot a lot of weapons. And they smiled and said, We got you, kid. And so they brought me in as that. Eventually, though, I realized this was before the wars were going on and all of that. I realized I needed an afterlife. And so I changed MOS as I became a 97 Bravo counterintelligence special agent.

Larry Zilliox:

Okay. So you you were it's very rare actually that service members who are in those jobs start to think about, hey, I gotta get out one day. And while this is cool, there's not much of a a transition into the civilian world for this kind of thing outside of law enforcement. You still you do see a lot of your guys go into law enforcement, but um yeah, that's uh that's a that's a pretty heads-up move to to switch over and take a job that's gonna be able to get you some employment after you get out. How how long were you in?

Eric Thomas:

I did 11 and a half years, unfortunately. I got out not on my own terms, um, sustained combat injuries and had to leave. Yeah. So then I became uh I I ended up working for DOD as a federal civilian, doing the exact same counterintelligence job just as a federal civilian.

Larry Zilliox:

Right, and getting paid more.

Eric Thomas:

Yeah, yeah and and now I'm Sir.

Larry Zilliox:

Nice. Were you medically retired?

Eric Thomas:

I did not, so um I was doing a different kind of job doing that, and so uh I got hurt and I didn't tell a lot of people what was happening or what was going on um because I thought I wanted to stay in, so I was fighting it. And so I left and then succumbed to my injuries, ended up with over 200 and some pieces of shrapnel out of my body, and um about uh I think I think we're at 16 surgeries or something like that.

Larry Zilliox:

All right. So you have a VA disability? I do, I'm 100% good. Well, that's good. That gets you a tax-free uh housing here, you know, tax-free one of the vehicles, yep. Yeah, that's awesome. Wow. You're a civilian government employee. I am and then along comes 2020, which is oof, the smack dab in the middle of pretty much COVID, right? And you do you decide like, hey, I got nothing to do, let me go start a nonprofit.

Eric Thomas:

I don't know about nothing to do. I had a lot to do. So I I work for Department of Homeland Security. Um, we were teleworking, we were, you know, doing a lot of work from home, still having to go back and forth DC once in a while, but not that often. Um and I found that as a senior in the government, I was becoming an unofficial advocate for veterans showing up and needing help that weren't either taking care of themselves or didn't know where to find these services. So I found myself advocating for them already and doing that stuff. I'm a religious guy, so I kind of felt the calling that I needed to do something more than just unofficial help. Sure. And it just happened to be while we had that downtime. I like a good cigar, I like a fire pit, which I appreciate your fire pit here.

Larry Zilliox:

Um we have six, by the way.

Eric Thomas:

I only saw one. I had to check out the others. Um, I just I felt the calling that I need to do something, and candidly, I just wanted to get involved with another charity. I didn't want the headache, I didn't want the hassle. I believe looking back, I probably also wanted a way to walk away if I didn't want to do it anymore. And that just wasn't in the cards at that time because of COVID. I found a lot of veterans really struggling and needing help, especially due to the isolation that was not helping at all.

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Eric Thomas:

And it just came together the right friends, right people, right connections, and people coming to me saying, We need to do something, we don't know what, and looking at me, going, What are you gonna do? And sitting at a cigar lounge in Leesburg, Virginia, uh, we came up with the idea, let's start this thing. And from September we became official and have been in a dead sprint since. Wow.

Larry Zilliox:

When you guys were there that that night, that day, when you were all there thinking about, okay, let's start this foundation, let's see if there's a way we can kind of organize what we need to do to help fellow veterans, law enforcement, first frontline responders. What was the thing you were thinking the most of? What was the thing at that time that you thought that they needed the most that you guys were gonna provide?

Eric Thomas:

I will tell you the first thing I said I wasn't going to do. Um, because and not because I don't find it important. It's very important, especially after I I had to go through the struggle of the process. I wasn't gonna do veteran benefits and go through compensation and claims and all that. Um that's a full-time gig. And that and that was not my forte.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, there's plenty of organizations that do that that have service officers, the VFW, DAV, American Legion. So I get that.

Eric Thomas:

I think that's I didn't want to be redundant. And so I looked at my journey. And if if you there there's my bio and my history on the webpage, and I ran through a lot of struggles and and hit a lot of obstacles going through the process at the VA with service dogs, with just a whole gambit of it. And I started thinking, and and not that I rely on education and think it, but if I have a master's degree and I'm a senior in the federal government and I'm struggling to figure this out and navigate my way through, we got problems. And so then it became how do I decide on out of the gambit of things we can help with, how do we what do we decide will be our core? Uh and we decided initially on three things, and we added a fourth because of our partners and supporters later. So we started out for me. Uh I I think we have a mental health problem. I think we have a mental health problem across America, not just in the veteran community.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Eric Thomas:

Um, I did not uh find good services when I was going through for mental health. They were real good about surgeries, they were phenomenal about recovery, all that stuff. Uh, I thought the mental health part was lacking. And so we decided I have access to mental health facility and doctors, and and so we thought that would be important. I knew I wanted to do service dogs because I have one. I didn't understand when I got him the value of that. Um, and after having them, I realized I definitely want to do that. And what we found was the mental health is complementary to it because if we take care of them on the mental health side, and then they get a dog, they're gonna be a lot more successful with that dog. And then I also knew based off of just working in the government, we needed to do advocacy and advocate. One, it's advocating just for the veterans. Uh, I may fly down to Florida. Maybe one of the guys that we gave a service dog to, for instance, had a state, he had a state job, the state of Florida f uh threatened to fire him and wouldn't let him bring his service dog to work. And so I went down there, I got the media involved, I got the legislators involved, and we all advocated on behalf of the veteran, and he got his job and back pay and all that stuff. So it's advocating that way or changing policies to help those groups.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow.

Eric Thomas:

And the reason that swath, um, you know, veterans and first responders and all so I've been all of those. I started in my life out as a firefighter and EMT. Um, I've been a special agent, I've been, you know, uh I've been a obviously I'm a disabled vet, and I found they all are underserved in many of the same ways and they have many of the same issues. I think you made a point earlier. They're at war here. They they they didn't, you know, the benefit I had is I got to get on a plane and fly 20 hours to go to war and then you know, turn it on, and then turn it off and come back home. They don't get to turn it off, they're in it every day, they live in it, and and it's in their community. And so it was important to me. And my son's in the army, he's an MP, so that it just it kind of comes full circle.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow. So do you guys provide services just Loudoun County, state of Virginia, nationwide? How do how does it work?

Eric Thomas:

So we're all over. Um, so one thing I don't do is you guys get a phenomenal facility, beautiful infrastructure. What I found in Loudoun County it's an expensive area to be in. And so we found it's it's easier to have people and services than it is to have things. And so what it is, I we're headquartered out of Leesburg, Virginia. I've got ambassadors in other states across the country. They're basically me and those other states that operate underneath our umbrella. And so we help folks out all across the nation. You know, we get applications on our website if people want our our mental health. They have to go through the mental health before we give them a service dog. Um, we have uh an annual hunt that we do every year down in Georgia. We got people that sign up uh for us to take them down there for that. Um, I guess it is a good time. So going through the four things we do, it's a CJ3 advocacy, CJ3 mental health and wellness, CJ3 service dogs. The last one that we added later was the CJ3 field ops, and that's just kind of an all-encompassing get outside, get your uh a place to get your adrenaline up in a safe environment. So we take wounded heroes out hunting, fishing, racing. Um, we get a summit point event out in West Virginia that we're gonna do a driving and shooting day and things like that. Wow.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow, that sounds like fun. Awesome. Well, listeners, right off the bat, I want you to go to the webpage. It's CJ3foundation.org. Check it out, look at all the resources that are on there, the different programs that they have, and you know what I'm gonna say. You you know where that donate button is. Bang on that donate button, give what you can. Five dollars, ten dollars, five thousand, ten thousand. They'll take it all. Doesn't matter. Help out. Uh they have some amazing programs. Service dogs really is one that I really wanted to talk about because I just did an episode with um Chris Beatty from Semper Canine. And there's a lot of organizations out there or groups that claim to train service dogs and they don't do a good job and they try to charge money. And so if you would, since you guys focus in on providing you know, service dogs that are are actually going to help the veteran, if you would talk a little bit about uh what is the best way for a uh v a veteran to think about uh do I need a service dog or how should I go about getting one? Because I think it's it's really important. What I don't want is for them to just spend some money with the first organization that they come up against, thinking that that's well, I I need to get a dog right away. What have you found is the best way for veterans to think about that whole process?

Eric Thomas:

Larry, I think the easiest way, because I don't want to call anybody out, right? Um I appreciate the fact there's services out there, but not all services are created equal when it comes to it. And so I'll talk about our process because what I think that'll that'll explore kind of the why I'll be able to talk about the why, it's important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Eric Thomas:

One, we don't charge for our service dogs. Our service dogs are free to the people that need them. Um I told you we require our folks to go through the mental health and wellness facility because I I will tell you, I get calls all the time from uh wounded vets and regular veterans, and I want a dog. Well, great. There's a pound right down the street. Go pack out any dog you want, and you go get a dog. Well, it's you know, I need it for emotional support. Well, I don't do emotional support dogs, I do service dogs, right? There's a there's a big difference. A service dog actually helps you with a physical disability. Right. That may be PTSD, but it helps you with a physical disability. So we require our veterans to go through our our mental health and wellness, and and in that process, we focus on gut health, on brain, on your back, and your spine, and we have social workers, we have all that. Bottom line is we figure mind, body, spirit, if we take care of all that and kind of get you to a norm, then you're gonna be more successful than the dog. So and then that helps us screen out folks as well, because then we utilize the doctors to help to screen do they need a service dog? Because I can look at somebody and go, Yeah, I think they do or don't. And what do I know? I've I've met you for 10, 20 minutes, right? Um, so they go through that process for a week. The doctors really get to know them, and then I get to know the after they go through them, then I really invest my time in them to if they still want a dog, and we have conversations and I get them around havoc and start showing them the and then that helps me learn who they are, what they are. And the reason why is I don't just have an OML where next dog goes to the next veteran. We pair veterans up by lifestyle, by personality, by all that of what would they best pair with? Not so for the folks that can't see havoc as a Belgian Malinois, um, we basically call them fur missiles. And not every veteran needs a fur missile, uh and it wouldn't fit their lifestyle.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, it could be a lot for a veteran with mobility issues to try and handle.

Eric Thomas:

So well, with that with the amount of exercise they require, the go-go go. And so maybe they need a lab, maybe it maybe they like to hunt and fish, and so a lab, maybe a golden retriever. Um, we did a giant snauser for uh special forces guy that he wanted a dog that that had a personality like a Belgian Malinois, but his kids were allergic to dogs. And so we did some research and went, well, back in Germany they used to use these as police dogs so they can still hit and do all that stuff um and compete, and but then they're hypoallergenic. Nice. So bottom line is we don't just get a dog and put a veteran, go, here's your dog, and peace out. Take it or leave it. Yeah. Um, we we pair them up and and that's a whole process, and it's costly. Yeah, um, that's a long process. So, going back to your point, what I highly recommend is don't be in a rush to get a dog. It I would question most folks that I know that do dogs in this or in this area of what we do, they've got a waiting list, but they have a waiting list for a reason, and it's a good reason. If you're rushing the process, I'd question the process. Um, because if they just have dogs at the at the ready, yeah, were they trained for you? Because when we get our dogs, one, you don't get a service dog until they're a year and a half to two years old with us. And so we get our dogs from overseas, they're getting trained from day one. We don't retrain dogs, we don't get dogs from the kennel and then train them. They're they are bred to be trained, that's what they are. And when we find that they're that they're ready to enter this, then we bring them from overseas. They go to either our kennel in Illinois or our kennel in Georgia. Now, I told you I don't own a bunch of places and a bunch of facilities. Sure. I partner with facilities that they're a part of the foundation. So I partner with professional kennels that do this for law enforcement, do it for military, do it for the federal government. They're already running professional kennels. Why would I recreate what they uh what they've done their entire, you know, as l as a livelihood? Sure. Because they can do it better than I can. Yeah. And so you also get that professional certification that goes with the dogs as well. So I say all that. There's just a lot of things to look for to walk away with the best dog you can.

Larry Zilliox:

How long does it what normally take to train a dog on average? I know they're all different.

Eric Thomas:

So, like I said, we don't give a service dog till a year and a half, two years old. So they are trained front that whole time.

Larry Zilliox:

Right.

Eric Thomas:

And um And we don't shop them around, they stay in the training environment. Because the other side I don't I don't like to do is if I g Larry, if you decided, hey, I'll take your dog for six months and raise it, and then it goes over to this other family, they can pick up bad habits. I don't want you training bad habits into the dog that I just invested twenty-five thousand dollars into to to bring to the veteran. And so our veterans stay, or our veterans, our dogs stay in a training environment the entire in that same training environment the entire day.

Larry Zilliox:

So you you don't use the puppy raiser model. No, we don't. Okay. Yeah. Is there is there time that the the veteran spends with the dog and with the trainers before they take the dog?

Eric Thomas:

Yep. So once they're identified, hey, you're getting a dog, um, then normally that's when we start doing the pairing and we'll grip we'll bring a couple dogs over that fit the personality, fit the and then and we'll decide, okay, based off of which one works the best. Then we fly the individual and one of our folks out to the kennel, whether it's Illinois or Georgia, and they spend a week with the dog. And they go through all the training. And then the other thing we do is then our trainers go out to the individual's house, they come back with them, which is what a lot of places don't do, and introduce the dog into their home, to the family, to all that. Because one of the biggest things I see that happens is you spend all this money in training when they're there doing it, they're getting trained, but then you develop bad habits or you're not consistent with it. Well, these dogs are smart dogs. They're gonna fall into bad habits. Most of the time I get a call from a veteran who says, Hey, my dog's not doing what it's supposed to do. We'll talk through it, or I'll fly out there and we'll find out, no, you just slipped into bad habits and didn't you weren't consistent. And we'll get them back in, we'll get them back into. And that's the other piece I found for some of these organizations, there's not a follow-up. We try to get our veterans together at events. We try to do either an annual event or a couple, and that's not just to get everybody back together and rah-rah, it's good to see you. It's also so we can recertify the dog and get eyes on and make sure just the general health and welfare of the veteran and the dog, right? We want to see them together and make sure they're doing right. If they're not, we do on-the-spot corrections, do training there and and whatever we need.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, listeners, there's another reason to go to the webpage, cj3foundation.org, and donate. I mean, you just you heard that what it takes to get a dog for a veteran. And uh they're they're not cheap, there's a lot of cost involved. Um, I would say probably by the time uh all said and done, you've probably got 50 grand rolled up into that dog.

Eric Thomas:

Because of relationships and partnerships, we do it for $25,000. Wow. That's uh but I mean a lot of people look at oh, that's expensive. I said, Well, look, look what your medicine costs you. Oh, yeah. This is this is actually a very cheap investment for what they do. And I will just vouch, Larry, you've seen you've seen my dog. Has he moved since he's been here? No, they're very well trained.

Larry Zilliox:

No, no. My sister had a wonderful uh dog, unfortunately, passed away. But the the most well dog, well-trained dog that I've ever seen. I mean, you know, a squirrel could go prancing right in front of that dog, and he never moved. He he uh he constantly had his eye on my sister, and whenever she moved, he moved. And you know, so I've interacted with a service dog that's truly a service dog. The benefit to the the veteran is immense.

Eric Thomas:

Um the only thing I'd like to say, Larry, is I don't want to take away from the service dog. They're they're they're very cool, they're fun to watch, and they're a huge help, but they are but one tool. And that's why we we require of our veterans that will get one to go through the mental health and wellness piece, because we want to help you find your new norm and help get you healthy. And then the dog comes in and just makes you even more healthy and makes you even more mobile. And so that's our goal.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, the mobility is really the key there. It gets them out of the house, gives them the confidence to get out of the house, to go to those medical appointments, to maybe join the American Legion of the VFW, and you know, once a week go down and see some guys and sit around and talk for a while. I I mean service dogs are are just invalu invaluable. And what I'd really like to see is some of the legislation that's come up that has just constantly gets tabled. Regulations are the newest uh um bill before Congress uh involves just five years of research to show the benefit.

Eric Thomas:

So it started out as the Pause Act, and then it moved into the SAVES Act. Yeah. And I will tell you there was a problem with the way the Pause and Saved Act was written initially, and that was because of the wording, over half the service dog organizations across the United States were ineligible for the to be part of that program. And so that was one of the things we help advocate uh, along with a couple other groups, help advocate to get that change. They've removed that verbiage. However, I'm still interested to see because to your point, there's supposed to be a five-year study. And and for the listeners, the other thing it does is it provides I think it was twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars from the VA to a service organization to provide a dog to a veteran. Because, like the process I went through, they said, We think you need a dog. Prescribe me a dog. I said, Well, what window do I get him at? They're like, Yeah, we don't do that. You gotta go find some organization to do it.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah. It's it's almost the it's the same model that they use for it's the same model they use when their funding changes to s a veteran's vehicle to make it, you know, our assisted driving capability and that kind of thing. But you know, and I have always thought that the one of the biggest hurdles is that uh with the VA, uh anything that's service connected, they pay everything for. And I think that's really spooked them, you know, uh for my hearing aids, because it's a service connected. They send me tips, they send me batteries, they if uh I need new ones, they give me new ones. Uh I think they've always been a little bit leery of the idea that if we say you need a service dog, then do we have to buy food? Do we pay the vetvills? Do we get a new collar? Um, I think that's really the thing that's really held it back from the VA point of view for a while is they really weren't sure what they were going to be responsible for.

Eric Thomas:

Well, and and a lot of that goes to policy, right? Advocate for the right policy, because I don't think candidly, I will tell you, as a veteran organization and a veteran that has a service dog, I don't think they should provide everything. However, I do think if you give a service dog, then veterinary benefits should come with it because not you know uh dogs are not cheap to maintain sometimes. And if they you know they could get injured, they can get uh and if that becomes your lifeline, you need the means to be able to fix it. And not all veterans have the same income. So I I think that piece needs to be. Um, but should you be responsible for feeding it and if you want a new collar for it, yeah, go go do that.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah. Yeah. No, vet bills are expensive. I I mean, almost as much as people bills really.

Eric Thomas:

It can be. I I will tell you, I recommend to a lot of our veterans buy the pet insurance so you don't have to worry about it.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah. Where do you see the organization going in the next, say, five years?

Eric Thomas:

Larry, I'm afraid to answer that because uh like I said, we've already added a piece. I we didn't do the driving, shooting, hunting, fishing. We didn't do all that previous. Um, because of uh we had generous partners that came on board that fell in love with who we are and what we do. You know, we had a weapons manufacturer come on board and say, You're gonna take veterans hunting. Here's $100,000 worth of weapons. I said, I guess we're gonna take veterans hunting. You know, and and we and we had opportunities and access for it. So my goal is always to stay within our means. You don't want to outgrow your capability or your effectiveness. And so we're inching along, however, you figure we won't we've we just hit our five-year mark a couple months ago. I I'd say we're doing okay. The the big thing I'll tell you is our force is all volunteers. We don't get paid for what we do. Nobody, not even and I'm the director and founder. I don't get paid anything. My goal, I know I've had friends tell me you can't sustain that. My goal right now is to do it as long as I can to keep it that way. Um, I do not want to make money off the backs of it. There's nothing wrong with getting compensated for it, but I also seen a bunch of organizations prosper off of it, and I think that's a problem.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, there's that's there's a big difference there. I mean I mean people work in the the nonprofit community are underpaid for sure. Oh, yes, absolutely. Uh they could they could go to co corporations and make a lot more money. It's and they're just sort of it's in their uh psyche, you know. But yeah, you should be compensated. Um, because also people who start nonprofits tend to it's it's little things here and there they end up paying for out of their own pocket. All the time. Yeah. So that's got to stop. And I'll tell you a good way for that to stop is listeners go to the webpage CJ3Foundation.org, hit that donate button and give what you can. They've got some amazing programs going on. They really need your help. I mean, look, this is uh it's a tough time for everybody. We realize that. And and listen, if you're in the Northern Virginia, DC, Maryland area, and you're a furlough employee or anything like that, we're not asking you to make a donation now. But you'll be back to work before you know it, and things will take a turn. And go to the webpage, remember the webpage, go back and make a donation when you can, take that URL, that link, and send it to a buddy. Send it to somebody that you were uh in the service with and say, Hey, look at uh look at what they do. I know you were maybe thinking about getting a service dog. Why don't you give these folks a call and talk to them about it and say, you know, well, I might need a service dog, or maybe I don't, you know. They're there to help you, and they have some amazing programs. So again, visit the webpage cj3foundation.org. Eric, I can't thank you enough for coming by and sitting down and telling us all about the foundation. It's great.

Eric Thomas:

No, Larry, I I applaud you for reaching out. Um, to me, this is what's important. Uh, we're not in competition in this arena. It's it takes all it takes a village, right? And so I appreciate the fact that you're reaching out. We love to work with other veteran organizations, we we love to work with other businesses and corporations. Um, and and I would highly recommend if veterans are listening and and there's anything, even if you don't want to sign up to go do one of our events or to look at our social media, come out and hang out with us. We do pop-up events at restaurants, at bars, uh just all over. Um we try to keep active. If nothing else, it's a good social place. Come see the dogs, come hang out with us. Would love to have you out and love to see you. How about volunteering for your organization? So we do have some volunteers. A lot of what that is is coming to support our events since we don't have an infrastructure. Sure. I don't require a lot of that. However, if you got skills, we can always use graphic folks. We can always use people that are savvy in this arena that have skills that can provide back. Otherwise, just you being out there, wear our swag that shows the the the CJ3 Foundation information on your shirts, on a hat. I know, I know you think it's just a t-shirt, it's just a hat. It's brand awareness. Yes, and it gives a talking opportunity to somebody that goes, hey, what's that? Yeah. And maybe you don't donate, but that other person does.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, so there you are. Listeners, if you've got experience with web pages, give them a call. If you got experience in graphic design and like to put together flyers and things like that, give them a call. If you got fundraising experience and you're sitting around with nothing to do, give them a call. If you're not sure how to help, go to the webpage, hit the donate button. But definitely check them out. So, Eric, thanks again for coming. I really appreciate it.

Eric Thomas:

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Larry Zilliox:

So, listeners, we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriors.org. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms. We're on YouTube and Wreaths Across America radio. So thanks for listening.

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Larry Zilliox

Host