The best weekend of the year for many Indiana veterans is what we fondly call “Vet Camp.”
“Why?” You may ask? Well, the answer will be different for many. For Aaron: It is the only weekend he doesn’t have to work. It is HIS weekend, HIS time, HIS peace, and HIS time to just BE with friends and ‘family.’ For Diane, it is time to be away from the nitty gritty and a time to just “play at camp like kids.” For Dennis (there were several of them, but this one knows who he is), it was time to spend in camaraderie with other veterans: his people, those who ‘get it.’ For some, it was the one time they get to tie dye and slide down the giant Wet Willy slide, each year.
You see, the V.A. and the YMCA spend a year raising money and preparing a kids’ YMCA camp to provide a weekend of fun, laughter, camaraderie, and healing for disabled veterans, each year. It is more than a treat: It is respite. Believe it or not, this weekend saves lives. This weekend brings hope. Some of us look forward to it all year… hope. Some of us talk about it all year: hope. Some of us cling to it, because it is the one thing, the one activity, the one set of days that has meaning to something to us: hope.
When I talk to veterans who go to VET Camp, they tell me they love it because it brings people together who do not see each other all year. They say it pulls them out of isolation. They say it gives them the opportunity to try things they never would have considered ever trying with people they feel safe with, people they would have covered in a fox hole to save their life, if necessary, and they trust would have saved them, no matter their differences. This one weekend diminishes a sense of loss, if only for a few days, but just enough that it heals a tiny part of a person that seems to have been lost through that transition to civilian life, the loss we all share in some way. We need this type of event. Camp is one way to do it in a big fashion, a helpful fashion.
Thank you YMCA of Indiana. Thank you Roudebush VAMC. Thank you military and veterans of the US Armed Forces… and your families that stuck by you through the hardships… Thanks to all for making the great parts of VET Camp 2026 amazing… yet again.
BTW… if you didn’t make it this year: You have got to see the new barracks! Flat Rock River YMCA camp has a new bunkhouse and more are coming! It is amazing! We got to be the first veterans to experience a new way to camp, and it was FABULOUS, darlings…
If you want to support VET Camp 2027, please consider donating to the YMCA and make a note that your donation is to support VET Camp. They will send it to the right people. If you want to make sure it gets to the right person, send it in care of Jeff Chapman.
We had a record number of veterans who made it to VET Camp, this year, and this year it cost more than $330 each to make this happen for them. We had over 70, so they need the help! If you have it in your heart: This isn’t about asking for you to help but letting you know it was an amazing and life-saving event… but if it is in your heart… You know (and so do I).
LOL one of the favorite fundraisers is in February: The Polar Plunge. Some of my friends go and jump in the frozen pond to help raise funds… nope I am not doing it, but you might be braver than me! I am willing to sponsor someone and give money to watch them freeze… but I am not getting in. I do not like getting cold and wet. Aaron will, though!