Our Heroes Veterans Program honors, recognizes, and supports our military veterans. We build camaraderie to help through our award-winning events and activities. We know that leaving the military is one of the most challenging life changes anyone can experience. It’s why we strive to help support our veterans through this transition by letting them know their service is essential to us and to our community. We do this by creating honor and recognition events that allow all of us to say, “Thank you, veterans; we appreciate our freedom.”
Since our inception in 2011, our events have focused on allowing more than 600,000 Arizona veterans to know that their service to our country was not in vain. It made a big difference to all of us. That’s why we create and host special events such as:
- Home of the Brave Memorial Day Program, where we pay tribute to and honor the ultimate sacrifice of our military members, veterans, and their families who call the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona their final resting place.
- Phoenix Veterans Day Parade, a glowing tribute with floats, music, balloons, military vehicles, marching units, and more to showcase the honor we provide to highlight the service of our veterans, is held each year on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, at 11 a.m.
- Veterans Forum is a unique gathering of Veterans who work in organizations that have Veterans Engagement Groups, Veterans Resource Groups, or Veterans Affinity Groups. This event helps build camaraderie between community organizations while highlighting best practices to keep our veterans engaged and involved in the workplace.
- Pearl Harbor Commemoration Ceremony, where we take the time to reflect on the ties we have to one of the most infamous days in history, the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1942, which led the United States into World War II.
In addition to these large-scale events, we have other activities such as decorating the gravesites ahead of Memorial Day, hosting a high school essay competition so the youth will understand the role our veterans play in defending our freedom, and creating the Honor Our Heroes campaign where we accept community nominations to select our Parade Grand Marshals.
These efforts require support from many team members and volunteers, and you can help! If you want to get involved in connecting with and honoring veterans, we could use your help. We meet during lunch or after work to help work around your schedule. Our engaging teams support us by donating 6-8 hours a month and more on event days to help us. Please let us know if you’d like to be a part of any of these teams. You can email our Executive Director, Paula Pedene, at paula.pedene@honoringamericasveterans.org or text or call her at 480-772-2934.
We look forward to hearing from you!