Kentucky grant allowing Camp Hero to expand services

MCKEE, Ky. (FOX 56) – For nonprofits like Camp Hero, to provide the services they do, they need a lot of support.

A new grant is allowing the organization to better help serve veterans and first responders.

Camp Hero co-founder Rocco Besednjak describes the services and opportunities they provide as tools to help.

With the help of a $25,000 grant from the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs, Besednjak said they can continue the work he started back in 2019, letting veterans and first responders know there is a place where they can go, be out in nature, refuel their mind body and spirit, and interact with people with similar experiences at no cost.

Besednjak knows firsthand the struggles that can come with mental health, and he wants to make sure no one else goes through what he did, and if they do, let them know there are people out there who want to help.

“Mental health plays a part of everyone’s life, personal and professional,” Besednjak explained. “This is kind of like bringing awareness where we interact and interweave mental health with our training. It lets them realize, ‘Okay, this kind of relates to this and my mental health,’ and it allows people, when they feel a certain way or whatever, for them to identify it and realize what they need to do to help, you know, either fix that or corrected or, you know, improve their mental health.”

Besednjak said he and his team are working to receive more grant funding to continue expanding their reach.

One of those programs is Camp Hero’s Nature Immersion Program.

It is described as a maintenance opportunity for veterans and first responders and their mental health.

The different classes included everything from shelter building and knife and axe handling to what we got to experience out at Camp Hero on Thursday: man tracking.

Man tracking is a skill used by first responders to determine the direction a person or animal is going based on clues from the ground, such as tracks and footprints.

It’s an opportunity for the people who come out to camp to get to do something aside from sitting around that also enhances a skill they may need in the field.

It is also a chance to learn from their peers.

Both in terms of the skill the program is focusing on that day and also each other’s mental health journey and the obstacles they’ve overcome.

“They’re developing friendships with new people that they’re teamed up with,” Besednjak described. “The mental health professionals integrate mental health stuff and with it, talk about being aware, attention to detail on stuff. It increases your confidence. It also increases your self-esteem. If you have higher confidence, you have higher self-esteem, higher self-worth, which helps with mental health.”

Besednjak said the amount of trauma a veteran or first responder sees is often indescribable.

Having the chance to escape is a small but powerful opportunity.

You can learn more about Camp Hero and its Nature Immersion Program here.