By Anita Todd
HAINES CITY – Studies show that every day, 22 veterans take their own lives, more than 8,000 lives lost every year.
Veterans Justin Brennan and Coy Bope want to change that.
Their nonprofit, Veterans Outdoor Ministries, was founded with one mission: to bring veterans and their families outside and surround them with healing, connection, and purpose.
Brennan, a U.S. Army veteran who served two deployments in Iraq, understands firsthand the challenges of returning home.
“When I returned from my second deployment, there were service organizations available that I reached out to, and they helped me,” Brennan said.
Now, he wants to pay it forward.
The organization focuses on taking veterans, their spouses or caregivers, and families into the outdoors, hunting, fishing, camping, and participating in activities that help them reconnect with others and with themselves.
“Oftentimes, veterans feel trapped and alone indoors, shut off from the world,” Brennan explained. “We know that the outdoors has the healing power to help veterans who are struggling with mental health issues.”
The heart of the program is simple: healing through camaraderie, healing through nature, and, Brennan says, healing through faith.
“The idea behind it is healing through comradery with other veterans, healing through nature, and we like to add one more strand to the cord,” he said. “As good as those organizations were that helped me, there was one component missing.”
And that component, he said, was God.
“As veterans ourselves, my wife and I know that the healing power in this combination is amazing. We spend as much time in the outdoors as we possibly can, and we are trying to spread that enjoyment within the veteran community, one hero at a time.”
Brennan and Bope met when Bope attended one of the organization’s trips, in fact, the very first one.
That was in April 2024. Since then, Veterans Outdoor Ministries have taken veterans on more than 30 outdoor adventures, giving them something many haven’t felt in a long time: hope.
After the trip, the two vets became fast friends, and Bope became a member of the organization’s board of directors. Brennen’s wife, Aprie, and Bope’s wife, Brooke, are also an active part of the group.
Trips are posted on the group’s website. and vets sign up for the complimentary trips that way. Some of the trips have included hog hunting, a shark’s tooth search, gator hunting, and deep-sea fishing.
“I had the privilege and honor of getting to go with Veterans Outdoor Ministries on a hog hunt and the experience was nothing short of spectacular,” wrote James Herring on their website. “The camaraderie with other veterans was fantastic and the hospitality from the group was top notch.”
The organization is a 501c3 that is funded entirely by donations. “We need to do our part to give these great American heroes everything we can because they signed a blank check for everything they had,” Brennan said.
For more information, visit veteransoutdoorministries.org.
