Grace After Fire Empowers Women Veterans After Service
Grace After Fire, founded in 2002 as The Women’s Heart, started out with a focus on increasing access to health care for women veterans. As the organization grew, its goals shifted from dealing with the challenges women veterans face to finding ways to empower those women veterans. Since 2008, the organization has been serving the community by providing community resource navigation services, social events, and annual retreats to women veterans and their families. In 2012, it launched programming in the form of a peer-to-peer support group, Table Talk Color Me Camo, and then in 2017 began providing financial basic needs assistance.
The organization’s mission is to provide the means for women veterans to gain knowledge, insight, and self-renewal. Grace After Fire works to help its recipients learn to help themselves by connecting them with the resources and tools necessary to be productive citizens in their communities, work, and homes after transitioning out of the military.
Photo courtesy of Grace After Fire.
During the grand opening of the Black Rifle Coffee Company Houston outpost, the BRCC Fund presented a donation of $5,000 to Grace After Fire. This donation is allocated for programming and allows Grace After Fire to reach more women veterans who need assistance.
"We impact the lives of women veterans every day through our services and programs,” Mea Williams, president and CEO of Grace After Fire, said. “However, it is nearly impossible to do that alone. The contribution from the Black Rifle Coffee Company will help ensure that continued impact, allowing Grace After Fire to provide hope, connection, and purpose to women veterans and their families."
Photo courtesy of Grace After Fire.
“We serve all areas of the US, wherever we can reach,” Tana Plescher, Grace After Fire program director, said. “But our financial services are covered by a grant, and at this time, we serve 21 counties in the Alamo [San Antonio] and Gulf Coast [Houston] regions.”*
The ultimate goal is to help women veterans help themselves. By creating a safe environment that fosters committed community integration, belonging, and social connectedness, Grace After Fire works to protect its veterans, connect veterans to resources, and renew women.
"Women are the most visible on active duty and the most invisible veterans," Plescher said. “Grace After Fire not only provides hope, connection, and purpose, but a call to action. If we don’t show up for ourselves, why would we ever expect anyone else to?”
To learn more about Grace After Fire, check out its website and social media, or donate here.
*The counties currently served by Grace After Fire include: Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Williamson, Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Walker, Waller, and Wharton.
