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Group using boat show to call attention to vets

Veterans on the Bay helps injured vets, families

By EARL KELLY, Staff Writer
The Capital
Published 10/07/09

A number of groups will use this week's U.S. Sailboat Show to showcase themselves, but at least one hopes to use the occasion to bring attention to wounded veterans.

Veterans on the Bay, a volunteer organization that provides these veterans and their families with moral support, transportation and recreation, will have a booth at the boat show - Booth P2 - set up near the Annapolis Marriott Waterfront hotel. It also will have a couple of beautiful sailboats, borrowed from the U.S. Naval Sailing Association, in the water.

Veterans on the Bay is a small, all-volunteer (except for one part-time paid secretary) nonprofit group that looks for ways to serve injured veterans and their families. For example, the organization has taken injured vets to air shows at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station and Andrews Air Force Base, and to see the Washington Redskins and the Nationals baseball team.

"It is significant that Vets on the Bay is one of the few groups that incorporates the spouses and the children - the vets' wives, girlfriends, their children are all welcome to come along," said volunteer Betsey Sanpere, of Annapolis. "Sometimes the group will include the families, even when the veterans aren't emotionally ready to participate yet, or have doctors' appointments that keep them from coming."

Mark Chapin, head of the Veterans Administration's Annapolis Veterans Center, which opened in April, praised Veterans on the Bay and said the important role recreation plays in overcoming serious injuries should never be underestimated.

"We know that a part of these veterans' readjustment … is just learning how to enjoy life again," Chapin said. "Sometimes these guys - and ladies - get so isolated, they don't feel like others can understand what they went through."

Veterans on the Bay is doing its best to get wounded warriors out of the hospital and back into society, even if for short periods of time, said Robert L. Howe, the retired Army lieutenant colonel who founded the organization in late 2006 as an offshoot of the Annapolis chapter of the U.S. Naval Sailing Association, of which he is executive director.

Veterans on the Bay was able to take 100 veterans and family members to see Paul McCartney in concert this summer at FedEx Field. And, because of help from Watermark Cruises, which cut ticket prices by half, Vets on the Bay took 108 wounded veterans and their family members on a day cruise to St. Michaels last month.

The family benefits from outings nearly as much as the veteran does, Howe said, because recreation can provide a respite from the worry that results when trauma hits a family, and can give family members a chance to lend each other moral support.

"We are seeing a lot more (injured) women, too, with children," Howe said, emphasizing the need to include veterans' families on outings when the budget permits.

Veterans on the Bay's annual budget is small, only about $20,000, and the group has about 45 volunteers, Howe said.

The group relies on donations; the booth at the boat show, for example, was donated by the show's sponsor, United States Yacht Shows Inc., as are tickets to various events.

It takes a lot of work by these volunteers to locate donors willing to provide free and discounted tickets to events, or in-kind donations such as food for a cookout, he said.

During the St. Michaels cruise, for example, volunteers coordinated with some restaurants there, which discounted the vets' meals by as much as 25 percent. Also, the volunteers coordinated with the Chesapeake Maritime Museum, which gave the vets and their families free admission.

On top of looking for affordable recreation for the injured warriors, Howe said the volunteers work closely with hospitals such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and the Veterans Administration center in Baltimore to identify veterans who need the help the volunteers can give.

"All we need is more volunteers and more money," Howe said. "And the boat show is our one big event a year when we can reach out to the public."

For more information about Veterans on the Bay, go to www.vetsonthebay.org.