Today is Memorial Day, a national day when we honor and and recognize those who have given the ultimate sacrifice of service. So it is only fitting that today we are having a conversation with an incredible nonprofit Roots for Boots that serves those who serve, our veterans.
Christy Lucus, founder of Roots for Boots is an inspiration and was beyond fun to talk too. Join us to learn the amazing story of Christy’s journey from a school principal to a nonprofit founder. You will see why her official title is Chief Enthusiasm Officer!
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Roots for Boots does?
Christy Lucas: We are a grassroots organization and our mission is basically to meet whatever need or challenge a veteran active duty or military family would have. And we like to invite the community to come in to use their own gifts, talents and resources to help us and we like to say that your way of serving your country.
The thing about Roots for Boots is we don’t have a specific niche. A lot of nonprofits do hunting trips or fishing trips with veterans. For us, no day is ever the same. We could be helping with rent, utilities, home repairs, or car repairs. One of the things that I love to do is to provide the All Terrain action track wheelchairs for our veterans. Those are for our veterans that have issues with mobility outside. These are the wheelchairs that have the tracks on them, a fishing pole attachment, and they’ve got a swivel on for their firearm. The wheelchairs even have a snowplow and they’re just amazing.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Roots for Boots?
Christy Lucas: From very early age, all I ever want to do is help people. When I was little, that’s all I did. And then when I had to figure out what I wanted to do as far career, I decided to go into teaching. So I went to teaching got my degree and I ended up at a Catholic school in Missouri Sound, Pennsylvania. It was just the little town that reminded me of Mayberry that was just a very simple close knit community. So I taught there for 14 years.
I always see God’s hand and everything that I’ve done here. You just never know where he’s going to take you. When I decided to teach, I went back to school to get my master’s in education. Well, I got the job and Annunciation in the middle of that program. I was like, I do not want to ever be a principal ever. 14 years later, the school needed a principal…. and I’ll tell you, that was a hardest job. That was the absolute hardest job I’ve ever had.
When I taught and when I became principal, I did the Veterans Day assemblies. I think this is where everything started. When I did the Veterans Day assemblies, I got to hear their stories, and the struggles of our veterans, especially our local, military. Then we saw some of our families have deployments who had military members in their family. And I saw that end of it as well. So I really got a connection there.
I come from a patriotic family where my dad’s a Marine. My grandfather served in World War II, my great grandfather served in World War I and an uncle in the Navy. My father in law was in the Korean War. So it was just all around. Love that surrounding your whole time yet you don’t always see it. So when I became principal, I used that platform more. I brought military in to help a science lesson, Social Studies lessons to talk about patriotism.
Veterans Day was my absolute favorite day in the school. That was because it didn’t take a lot to make our Veterans happy or to make them smile. The third year of my contract, I was really burned out and didn’t know what to do. I thought, well, maybe if I volunteer with a Veterans Organization, I’d be able to find my passion that way. I asked a friend who was a Marine, “Do you know any place I could I could do that?” And he says no, but why don’t you start your own thing? And when he said that, it’s like a spark went off my head. I knew what, no clue what I was going to do no clue what this was going to look like.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Christy Lucas: I think one of the challenges we have now is with growth. It’s just growing in leaps and bounds. I run a food bank, the second Tuesday of every month for veterans. That started with eight veterans back in 2018 and it’s now almost 150. It’s it’s more than a Foodbank because I have a Veteran Service Officer there. He’s able to help with any VA issues that they have. We have lunch for the volunteers and the veterans. And that’s priceless. having them sit around a table together and have a conversation.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Christy Lucas: I never take credit for this, I always say it’s God working through me. He’s bringing people to me that need help. And he brings people to me that can help me and I work with a wonderful team of volunteers. The one story that I always do tell is Jeremy Jacoby. He’s a young veteran, and he’s in his 30s. He’s got a young family and Jeremy was deployed twice. During his deployment he was exposed to chemicals and he’s losing mobility from the waist down.
Three years ago I got contacted because he he was trying to see if he could get up on one of the alteration track wheelchairs. So I met Jeremy at a local restaurant here and I just remember looking across the table. I could just see the pain in Jeremy’s eyes. What he so desperately wanted was to be able to run with his young son to be able to play football. He wasn’t athletic guy to begin with and now he’s reduced to a cane and a wheelchair.
All he wanted to be able to go out and hunt and fish and be able to play with his his son. So I remember hearing his story and then you see this, this soldier across from you and all sudden he starts to choke up. I looked across the table as Jeremy I grabbed his arm. And I said,” Jeremy, I will get you that tractor by Christmas.” And we did.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Christy Lucas: if I had a dream super big, the one thing I always say that that we that we were are in need of is our own space. I work out of my home and always having to borrow other people’s conference rooms. My core values for Roots for Boots is serve, educate and inspire. So I thought there’s these little one room school school houses around here that are all boarded up. So if somebody would just like buy one of those for me? Renovate it, make it lots recruits headquarters and pop a flagpole up in the front of it. I’d be able to meet with my veterans there and we’d have our own conference room.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Christy Lucas: When I was principal we would adopt an active duty servicemen each year. They have taught me perseverance and I’ve carried this on into what I do now, never get up or never give up. You know, live to fight another day. Just keep going forward. That’s a lesson that was has been priceless for me. I tend to be somebody that doesn’t run from a challenge, I go right towards them.
My biggest struggle was always failure. When I finally just said, “You know what, this is way too stressful. ”
I just had to be myself and figure this out. And I never thought that I would ever be able to handle the job is principal. I always thought I wasn’t smart enough to do certain jobs. Then I realized I was smart enough. And I was smart enough to form a nonprofit in this community, and opened it with welcome arms.
I was lucky because I think it’s something that community was looking for. When I look back on all those stumbling blocks and all those failures. And I just think you know what, I’m so glad that I just kept going, because I could have missed out on what could have been my greatest moment. You know, and I always tell people, just keep going, you could be you could be missing out on what could be your greatest moment.
CHARITY MATTERS.
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