23rd Veteran

MISSION:
• Provide happier, healthier lives for veterans living with trauma.

VISION:
• Give U.S. veterans a future of hope, opportunity, community, and inner peace.

OBJECTIVES:
• 23V Recon: A 14-week holistic program (camaraderie, physical fitness, and positive psychology) to help our veterans transition from military to civilian life.
• Bladesmithing - A sharp art therapy program that motivates veterans to get out of their homes and build relationships in the community while creating a functional piece of art
• Community Engagement: Provide education on post-traumatic stress, why it's common in the military culture, and how to create an environment more conducive for veterans. Host Nearly Naked Ruck Marches in cities where we run our 23V Recon program in order to connect the community with our programs and recruit veterans.

23V RECON (RECONDITIONING PROGRAM):
23V Recon is our primary objective. It's our "brain reconditioning" program providing a profound impact for veterans and civilians. We utilize brain science, combined with camaraderie, physical fitness, and positive psychology to retrain our negative triggers from combat stress to relate to new positive events, establishing a mindset that is far more successful in the civilian world. This is a groundbreaking approach to serving veterans with traumatic experiences and early results have shown it to be extremely successful.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:
23rd Veteran provides engagement seminars on combat stress. We teach why our brains are supposed to change during traumatic situations, why we carry that with us, and what the community can do to create a friendlier environment for veterans. This education is provided to corporations, universities, community groups, U.S. Congress, and government organizations. We also specialize in providing this very useful and destigmatizing education to military units before they deploy.

RECONDITIONING CAPABILITIES:
We've published the "23V Recon Playbook", which acts as a manual for coaches and veterans in the program. The book allows for easy expansion and execution of the program by laying out the foundation for:
• The rules
• The workouts
• The positive psychology sessions
• The memory retraining portions of the program
The "Playbook" has been used and refined through 28 weeks of execution. The 4th Version of the playbook has been used in expansion to 4 cities in 2022.

COMBAT STRESS SEMINARS CAPABILITIES:
Our Executive Director has been speaking around the country for military units, corporations, community clubs, mental health conferences, universities, and U.S. Congress. The seminars are continuing to be improved and refined for education, entertainment, and significance. The feedback received is amazingly positive and used to improve future seminars.

Performed nine 23V Recon groups:
• 80 graduates
• 97% report living a happier, higher quality of life
(as of Dec 2021)
• Running in 3 major US cities - Duluth, MN; Minneapolis, MN; Philadelphia, PA

Performed 306 Combat Stress Seminars:
• Educating 18,597 audience members
• Provided pre-deployment training to 1,113 military members
• Provided seminar to members of Congress in Washington D.C.

Received National Awards:
• 2nd place in Veteran Business Growth Challenge with 102 competitors nation-wide
• Named the nation's "Best Venture Impacting Veterans" by IVMF Syracuse at the Veteran Edge Conference in 2018