Overlanding 4 Heroes Family Journeys To Honor Veterans

After two years of planning and setbacks, veteran Aaron Tucker and his wife, Christy, and two of their three children, James and Tanner, successfully completed their “Overlanding 4 Heroes” journey this summer in an effort to raise awareness and support for veterans. 

Their mission involved ten days on the road, overlanding to remote places, tackling nine off-road trails 3-7 hours long each, overcoming obstacles and failures, managing unpredictable weather and documenting great successes. Their “why” behind taking this trip as a family was to tackle the challenging trails and remote camping as a representation of the challenging journey in a veteran’s life. 

We are grateful they chose Boot Campaign as the beneficiary of their journey and asked them to share more about their journey and why it is so important to them below:

Tell us a little bit about your fundraiser and the steps it took to get it organized.

The Tucker family embarked on a desire to plan a family overlanding trip that took two years of planning, setbacks, and comebacks all with a mission to give back to the veteran community. We wanted to do this by taking on challenging off road trails, and camping remotely as a representation of the challenging journey of a veteran’s life. In doing so, we dedicated trails in honor of fellow veterans by sharing their story, their service, and their sacrifices to keep our country free. We also wanted to dedicate trails in memory of fallen fellow veterans by sharing their stories and incorporating the families to honor their life they so selflessly sacrificed. 

We researched several charitable organizations that support the veteran community, and found that Boot Campaign’s mission complemented our family’s mission perfectly. We first went through Boot Campaign’s website and created a fundraiser through social media on Facebook, and completed the fundraiser form to begin our event through our overlanding trip. Within a matter of days, the team at Boot Campaign contacted us and has supported us ever since throughout our overlanding fundraiser that successfully raised over $2500, and now we are planning our next fundraising event!

 

Why was it important to your family to select Boot Campaign as the beneficiary?

In deciding to connect our overlanding trip to a non-profit veteran organization, we wanted to go with a charitable organization that we trusted. An organization that walked the walk, and stood by their word of supporting and providing for veterans and their families. Boot Campaign fit the bill, and made it easy to ask others to donate through the eyes of our family mission. We also appreciated the transparency of Boot Campaign’s financials in sharing how money is contributed to veteran wellness programs.

What about Boot Campaign’s mission is important to you and your family?

Boot Campaign was one of the only veteran-focused organizations with a focus on the silent wounds and mental health issues that veterans struggle with. As veterans ourselves, we know the battle is not over. The daily mental struggle that our veterans fight through everyday is real, and mostly silent.  It’s important to our family to support fellow veterans in this area and advocate for veterans who can’t by educating others. Boot Campaign’s mission aligned with our family mission of spreading awareness, and giving back to veterans by contributing to restoring their lives they sacrificed for us.

How would you inspire others like you to create a fundraiser like yours to raise funds for Boot Campaign’s efforts?

Connect Boot Campaign to something you are already passionate about! It could be from anything like an occasion you are celebrating, to a social event, or hobby. Boot Campaign makes it super easy to share your fundraiser on social media and supports you along the way. In addition to guiding you through coordinating an in-person event as well. What we found through our experience is people want to help and support our veterans. They sometimes just don’t know how. What better way than doing so through an event or occasion you are associated with anyway.