A NOTE FROM OUR CEO & FOUNDER, MICAH FINK

Season's greetings.

It is December in the year 2021. We are just weeks away from beginning a new year. As this new epoch arrives, we need to pause personally and professionally to reflect on the past year of our lives. How can we learn and evolve from our successes and failures? Where do we need to change? True reflection is critical in creating this human development project, Heroes and Horses, and for the authentic development of ourselves as individuals.

For years I have been studying and working towards understanding the veteran's nonprofit "help space"—a place undeniably filled with systemic failures, gross misunderstandings, identity projections, and massive resources. Sadly, the results are in plain ink. It's worsening. In the world of digital illusions, we never see the blood in the streets. When I began Heroes and Horses, I always stated that I would never participate in mass failure in exchange for growth. We would only pursue that what is true and good.

At the time, I only superficially understood the issues and have now gained insight by looking at the numbers. We would invest in the total human doing the opposite of the world. We would bring veterans together from across the country from every walk and background into a universal process that would reshape their lives. We would build a community and directly connect them to the supporters who recognize the need for change and give from their hearts.

Our goal is to reinvigorate a 20-year war generation, show them the tools they already have, and help them find the courage and character to use them, letting them feel again so they can heal. It takes pressure and time for an individual to understand and deconstruct themselves. We are a community where experiences once again become the vehicles that lead us to the truth of who we are. A place where the answers for your life are not told to you but exist on the other side of the unknown door—no longer slogging along in predictability of the invented, but instead living in the power of one's own creativity.

We are building this place brick by brick, and, one by one, together, we are fundamentally transforming lives. For eight years, we have faced significant challenges as we push for truth and real change, and change we are getting. Veterans are beginning to stand up. They reject the status quo and are fully taking ownership of their lives once again. This is why we exist.

You already know that if you are here, and I want to thank you personally. I want to thank the moms, dads, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters. Thank you to the corporate sponsors, anchor donors, elementary school kids, high schoolers, grandmas, grandpas, wives, and husbands, and the emerging voices calling for change championing this effort. Thank you. I hope this holiday season you will take time and reflect on the lives that you have played a role in bringing home. We are only here for a few winters. Alexander the Great once said, "Bury me with my hands out of the ground so the world may see that I left it with nothing." Honor what is good.

"Heroes & Heroes was/is/and will be the most life-changing experience of my existence. It brought me back. Reminded me to breathe. Opened my eyes, heart, and spirit. I'm beyond grateful for the privilege. H&H helped me realize more strength, more faith, more belief than I'd had a year before. Such an incredible organization, surrounded completely by the best. Hands. Down. 10,000%. Onward and upward."
- 2021 Program Graduate

Happy holidays,
Micah