The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund
StoryJune 08, 2015
Each month in this section the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems will highlight a different charity that benefits military veterans and their families. We are honored to cover the technology that protects those who protect us every day. To back that up, our parent company – OpenSystems Media – will make a donation to every charity we showcase on this page.
This month we’re featuring The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), an independent not-for-profit organization that supports the families of military personnel who have lost their lives in service to the U.S. and serves severely wounded military personnel and veterans. Originally established in 1982 by the founders of the Intrepid Air, Sea, and Space Museum and the Fisher House Foundation, the organization’s mission has expanded, to where its efforts are now totally funded with donations from the public.
To date, the IFHF has supported families, service members, and veterans with close to $150 million in benefits. From 2000 to 2005 the IFHF donated nearly $20 million to families of U.S. and British military lost in service to their nations, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of 2005 federal legislation that substantially increased the benefits granted to those families, the IFHF has redirected that support toward service members who have been grievously injured.
The Fund administers the Center for the Intrepid, a $55 million physical-rehabilitation facility at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, which aids severely injured military personnel and veterans. Also under the umbrella of the IFHF is the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), which is a 72,000-square-foot facility – located next to the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland – dedicated to the treatment of traumatic brain injury suffered by service members and veterans.
The IFHF is now in the midst of building nine “Intrepid Spirit” centers at military bases around the country, aimed at extending the reach of the NICoE to more troops. The first three centers – at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; and Fort Campbell, Kentucky – are operational, with the fourth and fifth Intrepid Spirit Centers under construction.
For more information, visit www.fallenheroesfund.org.
