Warriors Way - Shining Light on Veterans and Mental Health

Palmgren® had the honor and privilege to work with Warriors Way, along side the many talented artists that can be seen on Forged In Fire. We traveled to Lima Ohio to watch this grudge match go down. The purpose of the event, to bring awareness to veterans and veterans mental health. All forged items made over Veterans Day weekend was live auctioned to raise proceeds towards this non-profit. Every single donation and raised funds are 100% poured back into this organization. Warriors Way was proud to welcome over 120 local Lima residents, that attended this event to cheer on artists and learn more about the importance of this cause.

What You Need To Know:

Warriors Way is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides free recreational therapy services to Veterans, First Responders, and its Youth. Warriors Way typically provides services to over 250 Alumni every year. What makes this organization so special, is that Warriors Way offer 24/7 - 365 a year peer support emergency classes, to help veterans in crisis, and all help is all volunteer based. Everyday we hear about roughly 22 veterans taking their own lives. That’s around 6,000 veterans casualties from suicide, every year since 2000 till 2023. The statistics get worse when you consider that 184,690 veterans have taken their own lives in short of 23 years. This is why program’s like Warriors Way are so important to veterans and the communities they live in. Warriors Way, not only provides free classes…but they also hold donation based classes for the general public. Talk to anyone at todays event and the sentiment is the same, We owe it to the ones that have sacrificed the most for our freedoms to insure that they have somewhere to go before it gets to the point where suicide becomes a thought.

Warriors Way believes that being proactive in the veterans community and even in our local community is better than just being reactive. We learned that they have had over 23 emergency peer support classes for veterans sense 2021, and them being able to get through to one veteran to know that suicide is not the answer and there is help out there is a call that we will gladly wake up for at any hour during the night and go to the shop and get them in a better place to get and accept help. David Bates, the founder and President of Warrior’s Way, “I have to say I’m personally one of the lucky veterans after serving 3 tours in Iraq as a infantryman in the army, after leaving the army I was lost, but found a overwhelming support from the knife making community which helped me start Warriors Way and with support from donors like C.H. Hanson & Palmgren, we are able to help in a very good way.”

This mission doesn’t have to stop at Veterans Day or Memorial Day. This is a cause that affects every city in the U.S. daily. We need to bring this into a better spotlight in order to help fellow veterans facing mental illness end/or PTSD from serving their country! David Bates, “If you take anything away from this message please take this away C.H. Hanson and Palmgren Have helped save the lives of 23 veterans and countless other through you support of Warriors Way, and have helped bring purpose back into the live of hundreds if not thousands of veterans that have once lost their ways.”