Finding Solutions: Garden of Honor and Hope dedicated outside Veterans Villa in Augusta

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The community dedicated the Garden of Honor and Hope outside the Veterans Villa, where volunteers are still working inside on a place meant to house veterans experiencing homelessness.

People who gathered outside the Veterans Villa said that for veterans, service does not end when the uniform comes off.

“To us as veterans, it’s about serving our brothers and sisters. It’s about the ones to our left and our right. Just because we’re not in uniform, that sense of service doesn’t go away,” Donald Hanson said.

Veterans Villa aims to provide housing and resources

The Veterans Villa is working to help veterans experiencing homelessness. It aims to provide housing and resources.

Donald Hanson is the chapter commander with the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association. The association has been providing funding and support for the Veterans Villa.

“In the past, we’d always just written checks for the other veterans organizations. And we wanted a project that we could come alongside and not only provide funding, but do sweat equity and be a part of as a partnership,” Hanson said.

Garden dedicated as renovations go on

Renovations are still underway inside the Veterans Villa. Outside, the community dedicated the Garden of Honor and Hope.

“You can come and walk. You can find the paper message that you’ve given. There will be a gazebo that’s in the back. There will be benches.. The world is so crazy. There’s fear and hopelessness and you feel the serenity of it just standing here. That’s the goal,” Arlean Edwards said.

Arlean Edwards is the development director of the Veterans Villa. She said the project has been years in the making and the mission is needed.

“Those veterans experiencing PTSD and have certain triggers so that person that left will never come back, but it is our goal to do whatever we can to restore them to wholeness,” Edwards said.

Hanson: ‘Thank a veteran’

Hanson said the association will continue to support the project step by step. His message to the community is to thank a veteran.

“I’m the guy that’s going to go to somebody that’s a Korean war vet and say, hey, I was a medic in Iraq and got 22 years in the military. Thank you for your service. Your war was not forgotten. Or to the Vietnam vets, if nobody’s told you, welcome home and thank you for your service,” Hanson said.

“You’d be amazed at how many people I’ve said that to have never heard it before,” he said.

What’s next

The Veterans Villa is expected to open soon.

Another campaign will be launched to order memorial bricks for the garden.