MAUD, Texas-Michele Ladd's brightly wrapped RV rolled into Bowie County Tuesday with one mission.
"I just want to help get the word out about veterans' issues and try to save as many lives as possible," she said.
Ladd is founder of National Veteran Resources, an organization aimed at helping veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder or suicidal thoughts.
"Veterans are committing suicide at alarming rates," she said.
She is also the CEO of Heroes Home Advantage, a real estate rebate program for veterans.
Ladd is traveling 8,000 mile on a four-month cross country tour with her 3-year-old cavalier King Charles spaniel Chellis as her sidekick.
On Tuesday, Ladd and Chellis arrived at the Lancer Legacy Ranch in Maud, Texas. She will be doing a Facebook live interview from the ranch today to help promote its work with veterans.
Lancer Legacy Ranch empowers veterans to reclaim their lives by helping them identify obstacles to success, providing temporary housing when necessary and connecting them with medical, legal, educational and employment resources within the community.
In 2017, Ladd purchased an RV and wrapped it with her company graphics. She had never owned an RV and found it was quite the adventure just learning to drive it, fill the tanks and park it. But she persevered. In 2017 and 2018, she traveled more than 26,000 miles meeting heroes and thanking them for their services.
She would often park her RV for the night in Walmart parking lots or truck stops.
In 2019, Ladd decided to help veterans even more by sharing their stories through video interviews and helping them find resources to help if they suffer with injuries, PTSD, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, homelessness or drug and alcohol issues as well as finding service providers that would offer discounts to them. Ladd is visiting nonprofit organizations around the country to experience their programs and help spread the word about them.
Her mission is to visit as many of these organizations around the country as she can to help "fill the gap" in sharing resources with America's veterans.
The service of her two sons, Tom, a Marine combat veteran, and Tyler, a Navy veteran, has helped drive her passion for veterans' issues. A tattoo on her arm is of their dog tags.
Her next stop will be Little Rock. Ladd is a native of Rochester, N.Y., but now lives in Georgia.
For more information, visit NationalVeteranResources.com or call 888-562-5552.