Adopt-A-Vet delivers love in a bag

Jacki Bruning started Adopt-A-Vet in 2009. “I’ve actually come to work before and somebody’s pulled up a piece of cardboard to just sleep in that little cove by our front door,” she says. “That’s not right. I don’t know what the answer is, but we’re just trying to help.”
Jacki Bruning started Adopt-A-Vet in 2009. “I’ve actually come to work before and somebody’s pulled up a piece of cardboard to just sleep in that little cove by our front door,” she says. “That’s not right. I don’t know what the answer is, but we’re just trying to help.”

Jacki Bruning was deep in talks about expanding her nonprofit to bring gifts to veterans more often when her youngest son broke his neck.

Jon David Bruning was 22 and had just started his first job after graduating from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville when he took a float trip with some friends. He dove off a bridge into the water, and the bottom was closer than he thought.

He now lives at home, paralyzed from the chest down and confined to his wheelchair.

"We've never been the object of people giving to us, and it's a really humbling, uncomfortable situation, but we've learned a lot of life lessons, and we realized that it's as important to let other people give to you when you need it as it is to give to other people," Jacki Bruning says.

She started Adopt-A-Vet in 2009. When her son had his accident in 2013, she was working to deliver the bags of goodies to veterans on Valentine's Day and the Fourth of July as well as Christmas. These plans were put on hold until her family fell back into a rhythm of normalcy.

"Once I got hurt, she pretty much stepped away from everything to a certain extent to help me with all my stuff," Jon David explains.

After a year's break following the accident, Adopt-A-Vet was back on track to deliver gifts at Christmastime.

Last year was the first time volunteers brought gifts to the Veterans Day Treatment Center, a downtown Little Rock facility for homeless veterans, instead of visiting wards at the Eugene J. Towbin Healthcare Center in North Little Rock.

At last year's event, Dec. 19, each bag had a coat, socks, underwear, shirts, gloves, toiletries, a hat and a blanket.

Mildred Cady, 65, was most excited about the blanket, which she said she needed to fill her new apartment. Cady, who was in the Air Force, became homeless after spending 32 years in an abusive marriage.

She was staying in shelters before moving into low-income housing, she says.

Cady was staying at St. Francis House Ministries, a nonprofit that serves homeless veterans in Little Rock.

Jesse Evans, who was deployed to Vietnam for nearly a year, still stays at St. Francis. It was his first time to get a package from Adopt-A-Vet.

Evans, 71, is missing a leg because of complications following a blood clot about a year ago. He spends his days in a black wheelchair. He rolled himself past one of his friends who was sleeping in a plastic chair to pick up some of the candy that volunteers from Bruning's organization had sprinkled on the tables.

The volunteers helped serve lunch and desserts to the veterans as well as handing out the gift bags.

"We just put it out there," Bruning says. "People are looking to give, they just want a channel to do it. I try to be the facilitator."

Adopt-A-Vet started in 2009 as a grassroots movement after Bruning ran into a friend from high school who was a veteran and had post traumatic stress disorder.

"He kind of dropped out of society for a while," she says. "We reconnected, and he was really connected with the VA."

Bruning has taught her children the value of giving, Jon David says. When he was in elementary school, his mother would take him and his friends to different neighborhoods to organize coat drives. They would pass out flyers and come back later to collect donations.

"She's one of the most giving and caring people you could find," he says. "Not just to me and my brothers, but to all of our family and anybody she comes across."

The first year for Adopt-A-Vet, Bruning, her husband and their three sons took Christmas gifts to 45 veterans at the hospital. She has several family members who are veterans -- her dad, in-laws and nieces.

"I did not realize that there was such a need there," she says. "I think it really opened my eyes to the sad situation. I've had several friends that have worked for years to get their benefits, but until that time, they're homeless or living on very little. That just broke my heart."

Through Facebook and word-of-mouth, people heard about what the family was doing, and the project grew quickly to about 450 gifts. When businesses started to donate and wanted tax benefits, Bruning went through the process of turning her community project into an official nonprofit.

In 2017, Bruning decided to switch her efforts to helping homeless veterans after she began working more often in her downtown office.

"I've actually come to work before and somebody's pulled up a piece of cardboard to just sleep in that little cove by our front door," she says. "That's not right. I don't know what the answer is, but we're just trying to help."

Her friend Michael Morrisey, who helps out with Adopt-A-Vet, says he was supportive. Morrisey is a Navy veteran and likes spending a little bit of time every day with a homeless person.

"She decided that we would reach out to the homeless veterans, and I applauded that like nobody's business because it's near and dear to my heart," Morrisey says.

Bruning and Morrisey met in high school; she remains close to many of her high school classmates.

Another of her classmates, Connie Odom, has worked with her on Adopt-A-Vet for five years. She says Bruning's love for others isn't limited to veterans -- when the two are out to eat, Bruning will often pay for strangers' meals.

"She's just doing all this stuff that you would think, 'Nobody would do that,'" Odom says, taking a break from organizing donations for Adopt-A-Vet.

Donations are stored in Bruning and her husband's downtown business, a storage unit facility. Most arrive the week before deliveries are scheduled, she says.

Other than the practical items that donors give, handwritten thank-you cards for the veterans pour in and are kept piled high in a cardboard box to be stuffed into gift bags.

"To get a handwritten card from a kid or anybody that just says, 'Thank you for doing what you do,' it's just like giving them a hug," Bruning says.

Those who want to donate to Adopt-A-Vet can contact Bruning at jackijb@aol.com for more information.

Her dreams of expanding the program will be realized this year. Jon David is doing better and is gaining some independence.

The next project is called "Valentines for Vets," and will be similar to the Christmas program. She says she hopes to have ponchos and umbrellas donated, after observing the veterans at the day center on a rainy morning.

Each Christmas bag was worth about $125, Bruning says.

"Everybody wants to give at Christmas, and I get that because I think everybody realizes how blessed they are, but it should be all year," she says.

photo

Jacki Bruning (center) is surrounded by Baptist Prep Honor Society students who are helping her distribute gift bags to homeless veterans through the Adopt-A-Vet program.

High Profile on 01/14/2018

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