David Eddy wrote this article about FVC: Growers Helping Vets. It includes a good retelling of our origin story.
At their first meetings, they attracted not only interested growers, but three women who had lost sons in Iraq or Afghanistan. One of the women was Mary Tillman, the mother of Pat Tillman, who left a lucrative career as an NFL player to join the Army after 9/11. The women thought the Farmer-Veteran Coalition might help veterans who faced combat deal with their experiences, says O’Gorman, providing a place for healing.
“A lot of guys who’ve been in war talk about the psychological aspects of farming, about working with something that’s alive and positive,” he says. “A lot of people find that after the war experience there is something therapeutic in farming.”
