My Nonprofit Reviews

As a Marine combat Veteran living in the D.C. area, I was looking for impactful ways to volunteer locally this past spring and summer. After doing some research, I found TAPS - an organization that much to my surprise fulfills a critical function that our own government DOES NOT. That function being the ongoing comfort, care, and support to family members grieving the death of a military loved one.

Upon inquiry, Nancy Kaplan and her team welcomed me with warm arms and invited me to volunteer at their national seminar this past May. At the event, I was impressed by the shear number of families TAPS brings together from across the country to participate in counseling, peer support, and other incredible tailored programming. For me, the overall mission of TAPS truly hit home when I was assisting an older woman with her luggage to an elevator at the event. She informed me tearfully that her son was a Marine, and had died a few years earlier. She was recently divorced and lived by herself. I asked her how TAPS had helped her personally... without delay she replied - "I know I'm not alone now." It then hit home that there really is nothing like TAPS out there.

To think that my own dear mother would have suffered alone had I not made it back from Iraq without such an organization is shocking. Thankfully TAPS exists!

In the military, most of us just assume that if we die in service, our loved ones will be taken care of somehow... We never pause and think about the long-term emotional toll on the family... TAPS fulfills this critical gap in the aftermath of tragedy, where our own Military just isn't equipped to help out past the burial phase.

Without TAPS, these families would be worse off and we would be worse off as a nation. As a Veteran, I am so thankful it exists. THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO HELP!