Nov. 9, 2022
Supporting Our Community’s Soldiers and Their Families
With Veterans Day approaching, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank our community’s veterans for their service to our country, including the more than 400 veterans who currently work for Lee Health. I also want to recognize Lee Health’s Military Support Program and its founder, Kim Gaide, community benefit outreach program manager in our Community Affairs department. Since 2003, the Military Support Program has been assisting, encouraging, comforting and supporting Lee County’s servicemen and servicewomen and their families.
The Program supports active-duty troops throughout the year by sending monthly care packages with personal hygiene and comfort items, as well as clipping and sending coupons to military families to use at on-base stores. The Military Support Program also communicates with military families to assist with any immediate needs, such as food and utilities. Support doesn’t stop after deployment, though, because Kim and her volunteers help returning troops with VA benefits, wheelchair or durable medical equipment needs, or with readjustment to civilian life.
Kim was integral in launching the Veteran Visitation Program at Cape Coral Hospital in 2019, which joins the efforts of Lee Health, the American Red Cross, the United Way’s MISSION UNITED™ and Home Base Veteran and Family Care to visit veterans admitted to the hospital. The Veteran Visitation Program volunteers provide information about available programs and resources, as well as a comforting word. The program at Cape Coral Hospital was the first in the nation at a civilian hospital.
Lee Health proudly supports the Military Support Program as a program of Community Affairs, and assistance to our local service members and their families is funded solely by the generosity of our community, including the annual Thanksgiving Honeybaked Ham Sale. This sale, set for Monday, Nov. 21, and Tuesday, Nov. 22, at Cape Coral Hospital, Gulf Coast Medical Center, HealthPark Medical Center and Lee Memorial Hospital, helps raise funds for the monthly care packages.
There also is an opportunity for our community to support our military and veteran families this holiday season by “adopting” a family. The Adopt-a-Military/Veteran Family program allows local servicemen and servicewomen and veterans who are experiencing financial hardships to apply to participate in the program and members of our community can sign up to purchase gifts for families with children 15 years of age and younger.
You can find more information on how to support the Honeybaked Ham fundraiser and the Adopt-a-Military/Veteran Family program on the website; go to www.tinyurl.com/LHMSP.
The success of the Military Support Program is, no doubt, the result of our community’s generosity and patriotism, combined with Kim and her volunteer team’s passion and tenacity.