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| | Hometown Hero: ‘How do we serve them for serving us?’: Nonprofit Swim With A Mission aims to give back to veterans
RACHEL WACHMAN Monitor staff
Mark Aquilino and Todd Wheatley spent countless hours this summer organizing a fishing tournament unlike any other. They brought together veterans on the seacoast with the Yankee Fishermen’s Co-Op, a local fishing group, for a multi-day competition to catch the heaviest tuna.
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| From July 27 to Aug. 2, 26 boats of veterans, fishermen, and community members set out on their mission to win. The true prize, however, was the $117,000 raised for veteran service organizations across the state in the five days of the tournament and events surrounding it.
Aquilino and Wheatley sit on the board of Swim With A Mission, a nonprofit which supports veteran service organizations across the state while bringing awareness to the issues facing servicepeople upon their return home.
"As someone who didn’t serve myself, it’s my way of giving back," said Wheatley, a resident of Hampton.
Swim With A Mission hosts events throughout the year that bring together local veterans with community members who care. From paintball and swimming to fishing and more, these events aim to raise money that the nonprofit can then donate to service organizations while fostering a sense of community and fun for the veterans, their families, and those around them. According to Wheatley, the organization raised $2.7 million in July, plus the Fish With A Mission tournament.
Veteran service organizations can apply for Swim With A Mission funding each year. The nonprofit, which has been around since its inaugural swim across Newfound Lake in 2017, has raised over $9.9 million to fund veterans retreats, equine immersion, art therapy, mental health counseling, service dog programs, and more.
Aquilino, who lives in Bedford, first got involved through Swim With A Mission founder Phil Taub. The two men struck up a friendship and Taub saw Aquilino’s passion for helping others.
"He was like, ‘Hey, you need to be on our board. You just need to get involved.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, well, when I get involved with stuff, like, I go 100%,’" said Aquilino, who has been on the board for several years. "I’m so glad to be part of it because it is one of the most rewarding parts of my day, or my week."
From an early age, his parents taught him to care about those who serve their country.
"My parents weren’t in the military, but my mom and dad had a super high amount of respect for men and women in service," Aquilino said. "When 9/11 happened, my dad took us to the reserve center and said, ‘When people do terrible things to hurt our country and our fellow citizens, it’s these men and women we rely on to help us.’ And that really stuck with me."
Wheatley participated in a Swim With A Mission event in 2019 and instantly felt hooked on the organization’s goals. The more he learned about issues facing veterans and the nonprofit’s efforts to provide support, the more he wanted to be involved. He joined the board at the start of this year.
Both men run their own businesses – Aquilino is president of Outdoor Pride Landscape & Snow Management and Wheatley owns Heartfelt Homes. Each often applies the skills learned from his full-time time job to the work he puts into his passion for helping veterans.
"They literally put in hundreds of hours meeting with people, going to sites, and learning as much as they could about fishing," Taub said. "As a result, Fish With A Mission was a huge success. We got a lot of really great sponsors. We got a lot of teams to participate and a lot of great publicity, and then, of course, it raised a lot of money."
Taub, Wheatley, and Aquilino all mentioned the idea of giving back to veterans in terms of "time and treasure," or, in other words, time and money. While the money makes it possible to fund service organizations that improve veterans’ quality of life, the time people give to raising that money holds immeasurable value.
"At the core, we’re all just volunteers giving our time to a good cause," Taub added. "You can’t do all these things unless you have great people willing to put the time in."
The fishing tournament also allowed the organization to connect with different communities and broaden its network.
"We’re really trying to think about how we expand to different areas in New Hampshire to spread awareness and reach new people," Wheatley said. "We got a lot of feedback that there are not a lot of veteran fishing tournaments that people are aware of, so the cause really resonated with them."
Both men mentioned being struck to learn about the high rate of veteran suicides in New Hampshire. Wheatley explained that the transition from military to civilian life can cause struggles for many, especially with the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"From routine gaps and financial gaps to maintaining mental health services, veterans face a wide range and severity of challenges," Wheatley said.
Each year at a summit, Swim With a Mission convenes all the veteran service organizations in New Hampshire so the different groups can all discuss veterans’ needs together and better support each other in their shared goals.
"The best thing we’ve done with Swim With a Mission is help connect the dots with where the real problems are and identifying them, working with business communities, like-minded people, to figure out how we can legitimately fix and sustain solutions to the big problems veterans are having," Aquilino said.
Aquilino wants people to think about the difference they can make in veterans’ lives. Even a smile or a brief conversation can hold immense value to someone struggling on a daily basis.
"How do we serve them for serving us?" Aquilino asked. "What’s amazing is bringing all these different people together, it really is just a super helpful experience, and to see the level of commitment and dedication is very powerful."
To learn more about Swim With A Mission, visit https://www.swam.org.
Rachel Wachman can be reached at [email protected].
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