Group Camps to Benefit Homeless Veterans

“There’s a hidden community out there of people who served their country, and they don’t even have a roof over their heads, a coat on their backs or food in their stomachs,” said Dominick Grimaldi, of the US Military Vets Motorcycle Club.

The tents are set up on Robert Rose Drive in Murfreesboro.

A burning fire, gloves, sleeping bags and heaping bowls ochilili are protecting the US Military Vets Motorcycle Club from the bitter cold.

“I’ll never say that we know what it’s like to be homeless, but we want to bring awareness to it,” Grimaldi said.

Through 6 p.m. Saturday, they’re living on Robert Rose Drive taking donations of clothes and money for homeless veterans through Operation Stand Down. The mantra of the day is, ‘Anything helps’.

“The military was my family and now the veterans who I associate with, they’re my family,” Grimaldi said. “There’s about 400 homeless veterans in Rutherford County walking the streets as we speak. A lot of veterans who come back, especially these days, they have physical injuries, and they have injuries that you can’t see, and that causes other problems.”

Donations are being picked up in the parking lot of H3O Aquatics. Run by vet Michael Burrows, it’s an aquatic rehab facility often working with men and women who have served the country.

“We do everything from teaching people how to walk again or allow them to exercise again because they’re in so much pain or they have bad joints,” Burrows said.

Inside and out, the goal is just the same.

“We just want to give veterans a hand up, not a hand out,” Grimaldi said.

Away from the Black Friday shopping and hours of football, the vets said there’s nothing they’d rather be doing the day after Thanksgiving.

“What’s keeping us going is thcamaraderieie of it,” Grimaldi said. “We’re doing it for our brothers and sisters in arms. We really want to help them, and in turn, it helps us all.”