How it Started
After being quarantine for just over a month, the founders of Welcome Home Military Heroes were trying to figure out how to continue honoring Central Coast Military Heroes. After a few zoom meetings, the Tolan family released their plans to their “Patriots” (members). The Facebook post they released on their private page was simple and read, “We can not sit around any longer and not honor our Military Heroes. On April 28th, we are starting a new mission called, ‘Veteran Vehicle Salutes (VVS).’ See you there.”
That simple post spread like wildflower…
“I was expecting maybe five people to show up. I figured we would need to live feed a few of these events before it started growing in numbers.” Said Robert Tolan Jr, Co-Founder of Welcome Home Military Heroes.
But the event instantly became a hit on the Central Coast. Over 200 vehicles showed up to wish a Happy Birthday to an Arroyo Grande Navy Veteran.
“We live streamed the event on Facebook and it had over 30,000 views in just 24 hours. After that, we started getting calls to honor more Veterans. Then we started received calls from different parts of the country about how to plan these types of events.” -Tolan jr.
50 and Counting
Since that first mission, WHMH has travelled as far north as Cambria and as far south as Montecito.
Those honored on the Central Coast, took away the breath of everyone involved. The youngest Veteran honored was a 20-year-old Santa Maria Navy Veteran when she returned home from deployment. The oldest, was a San Luis Obispo 107-year-old WWII Veteran.
In July, they saw the largest turn out for a VVS. According to the founders, they stopped counting at 250 vehicles. The event, which honored one of the possibly only two Bataan Death March Survivors on the Central Coast had over a dozen local Law Enforcement Officers, multiple fire trucks and Military loving community members come together. Those who attended the event stated that they caused a massive traffic jam in a large neighborhood.
Time to take a break
Last week, The Tolan Family announced that they will be ending the Veteran Vehicle Salutes on December 6 in Shell Beach for the rest of 2020.
“We have been going all over the Central Coast ever single week for the past 31 weeks. Our Family and our members need a break” said Co-Founder Cheryl Tolan during the drivers briefing before honoring a Santa Maria Veteran.
“To continue what my Mom is saying, we want our members to take some time off and enjoy the holidays.” – said Tolan Jr.
A Veteran Vehicle Salute is not something easy to plan according to the founders. They spend several days prior planning the staging location, time, route and contacting and inviting all First Responders and even going to “drive the route” to find any issues.
Sometimes, the organizers would be planning four events in one weekend with some events being over 50 miles apart.
An Unfortunate “Political” problem
Since election day, the organization has run into issues with members of the community going after their Veteran Vehicle Salutes.
The organization flies the American, Military and Birthday flags. They do not allow any political flags or banners to be in the Salute. But that has not stopped people from cussing, flipping off or even spitting on Patriots of WHMH.
It has been an unfortunate turn of events for the organization.
“Our Veterans, especially our Vietnam Veterans shouldn’t have to do through this treatment again. But all our members know that we will just continue with our mission and to ignore the haters. Even on Veterans Day, when we were honoring over 20 Veterans in Nipomo, we received backlash. Drivers have attempted to run us off the road, even when we have a Police/ Sheriff escort” said Tolan Jr.
When asked if the negative reaction had an impact on suspending the Veteran Vehicle Salutes for 2020 the family responded by saying, “No it did not. We will not stop honoring our Military because we receive negative impact. But we do hope that people will cool down when we start these events back up in January and that they will take the time to research our organization and see what we will do.”
Plan for future
WHMH will continue to follow all county and state guidelines during these difficult times. In January, they will go back to their normal “COVID” Missions.
But until then, the organization says that they have four Veteran Angel Trees located in San Luis Obispo County that will help local Veterans. The trees will stay up until all our tags are gone and gifts are collected.
They will also continue their strong social media campaign. Their goal this year is to break their record for views on their Facebook page, which 2019 saw over 3 million.
Fundraising
The organization reported to their members that they have had the most successful year on online fundraising. They give created to their members for “creating” a fundraiser on their social media pages to help spread the awareness. They did not give a total raised but stated one member allow was able to raise 5x more money on their Facebook compared to all their social media fundraising for 2019.
They currently have online auctions going on that ends December 15. The items that are available, were supposed to be for their 6th Annual fundraiser in November but was cancelled because of COVID.
How to get involved
Just like most things now a days, the best way to get involved is to find out about their events online. Below, are the links to the nonprofit social media pages and website:
Photography
The organization wants to thank SLO Town Studios and Michael Ens Photography for capturing the photos for these events!