Humble Grunt Work fundraising for transitional housing for veterans

CENTER HARBOR — A local group is working to develop transitional housing for military veterans. Having passed a major fundraising milestone, the group is moving into the next phase of their campaign.

Humble Grunt Work, a nonprofit founded in 2019, was named in honor of Cpl. Eugene Burgess Jr., a veteran of the Marine Corps and three-time Purple Heart recipient who also earned a Bronze Star Medal during the Vietnam War. He died in 2018.

Now, his daughter Carla Ann Taylor, founder and president of the board of Humble Grunt Work, works with a team to honor veterans in myriad ways. 

“Sarcastically, I am ‘Head Grunt,’” she said, emphasizing the importance of a team effort.

Burgess Jr. died of Agent Orange-related cancer, and Taylor said she found herself disconcerted regarding the treatment of veterans by the government. She and a few friends then put their heads together.

“What could I do to turn that anger around?” Taylor wondered. 

“First and foremost, we honor living and past veterans,” Taylor said Monday regarding the mission of the organization. The group lays around 800 wreaths annually at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, for example — they’ll be doing that at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, enlisting the help of the Boscawen parent-teacher association — and the day before, at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6, at the Meredith Community Center, they’ll host a “cookie walk,” with 100% of the proceeds earmarked for the Humble House project.

The Humble House is their next big endeavor: transitional housing for service veterans, a place for them to go to obtain services and get back on their feet, into a job, or otherwise.

“Our goal is to put a transitional house here in the Lakes Region,” Taylor said. “Give them a hand-up, not a hand-out.”

The idea, similar to the Liberty House in Manchester, is to assist veterans who were either experiencing homelessness, incarcerated or struggling with unemployment to achieve job placement or housing, depending on their needs. They envision a nine- to 12-month program, and they’re looking for a Meredith location.

The Lakes Region is ideal for this sort of program, Taylor said, because there’s a significant density of veterans in the area, and more housing, mental health and social services available than exists in the North Country.

“We lose over 22 veterans a day to suicide, so we don't know what veterans are at risk,” she said. 

So far, organizers have raised $275,000 toward the project. 

“We have achieved that goal,” Taylor said regarding initial funding, which included an anonymous $100,000 donation. “We have gotten no grants, it’s all been private donations and us going to events.”

That seed money would fund the first three or so years of the program in terms of operations, by their estimation. Now, their big hurdle is to identify a property which could serve their needs. They’re working to identify such a property, and then would begin raising funds. 

They’re willing to do rehabilitation work, and a “viable” property would contain, ideally, six to nine beds, be capable of hosting two bathrooms, a community living room, a kitchen, an adjacent garage or otherwise suitable location to store donations, and a yard to grow vegetables. Connecting healthy, stable veterans with those experiencing challenges in an informal environment, like across the kitchen table over a cup of coffee, can be beneficial, she said.

“A place that they could call their own, and that they could give back to,” Taylor said. 

Members of the community who would like to contribute to the cause are encouraged to attend an upcoming event, or reach out to the organization directly at humblegruntwork.org.

This month, for example, Humble Grunt Work has a flag display on the grounds of Lakes Region Community College. Each flag represents a veteran expected to die by suicide in November. 

“It’s just to honor and respect, to not lose sight that our freedom is at a cost,” Taylor said. “When they come home, the battle isn’t over. We just need to honor and thank them, it’s the least we can do.”