Homeland Heroes Providing Comfort When They Come Home

A HERO'S WELCOME

Organization provides comforts of home to those who serve the country

Eagle Tribune
Breanna Edelstein
July 30, 2017

"We meet the vet wherever they are in life. Whatever we can do, we do. And if we can't, we find someone who can." Julie Weymouth

Ryan Hutton/Staff photo
Homeland Heroes Foundation Executive Director Julie Weymouth sits at her desk in Hudson warehouse.

"Weymouth in 2012 started her effort with a trip to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where she sat down with a chaplain and asked for some direction."

SALEM, N.H. — The Royer family watched the black faux-leather couch in their Rochester living room slowly dip and sag for a decade without being able to afford a new one.

Several weeks ago, they finally lugged it out of their home when they were given a new one, along with other free housewares, thanks to widespread community support for a local organization dedicated to helping active-duty military personnel, veterans and their loved ones.

Julie Weymouth, executive director of the Homeland Heroes Foundation of Salem, has seen the scenario play out hundreds of times since she helped start the nonprofit back in 2012. For a variety of reasons including financial hardship, emotional struggles and other circumstances, many who have served their country find themselves in need after returning home. So, too, do families while a loved one is deployed. 

Several tours to Afghanistan had taken a toll on Jeremy Royer, 37, a U.S. Army Veteran. The father and husband spent significant time on the aging living-room sofa, struggling with the residual effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, night terrors and unshakably aching joints.

Finances already were tight when his 37-year-old wife, Miranda, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma last fall. Doctors said the football-sized mass in her chest was encroaching quickly on her heart, and she'd need to fight for her life.
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Tall Ships Invade Portsmouth

Tall ships arrive in Portsmouth
Sea Coast Online
By Austin McGuigan
August 10, 2016

Parade leads tall ships into the Port City

The Oliver Hazard Perry tall ship docks in Portsmouth on Wednesday early evening after being in the boat parade on Piscataqua. Photo by Deb Cram/Seacoastonline

PORTSMOUTH—Not since 2007 has Ethan Bensley set foot on the Harvey Gamage. Spending four months onboard, Bensley who lives in Kittery, Maine, sailed the Gamage from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Boston as part of a “semester at sea.”

“It was awesome back in high school, it was a long time ago now,” said Bensley. “It’s a fun sail, it really is an old school sailing boat… certainly sailing on it is fun, but living on it is an whole other thing.”

On Wednesday, Bensley and his fiancée Lia Hoffmann, sailed aboard the Harvey Gamage for the annual Parade of Sail in the Piscataqua River. The parade kicked off the Piscataqua Maritime Commission Sail Portsmouth 2016 festival — held Thursday through Sunday.

A replica of a 19th century schooner, the Gamage carried 47 people up river. The Oliver Hazard Perry, Sail Portsmouth’s second featured tall ship, led the parade past the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and towards the Memorial Bridge.
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