Dear Members of the Welcome Home Project,

We wanted to let you know about our trip East to meet with our new fiscal sponsors, The Marion Institute.  We met with about fifteen members of the staff and Board, and showed the work in progress video clip to the group.  There were some technical problems with the showing (a film maker's continual nightmare) and then we talked about the movie, the Welcome Home Project and where it is headed.  Most of these people are young, incredibly idealistic, pragmatic and focused.  Desa, the Director, is a powerhouse and they are doing or supporting incredible work all over the world.

One member of the audience was Desa's father, Hank, who is a Vietnam Vet.  The film and our efforts brought him to tears and his emotion spread to all of us.  It was amazing to see a group of people, most of whom don't identify much connection to the issues of veterans, suddenly drop into the emotional connection that is possible at the heart of this project.  Our goal is to connect people using this film, and this meeting was a great example of what is going to be happening around the country, in large and small groups, as they begin to come together over the shared pain, and beauty, of our returning veterans.  It was incredibly inspiring to us and we were really shown how fortunate we have been to be taken on as one of the Serendipity Projects of the Institute.

In addition to joining us in watching and being moved by the film, these guys are activists, and they had a  lot of ideas about how the film could be used, as well as how to use the fundraising for the film to be a part of fund raising for other programs that directly benefit veterans as well as the larger community.  For example, we will be discussing how to bring the issues of veterans together with Green Jobs and inner city development, domestic violence, homelessness, etc. 

We have also recently embarked on an effort to expand our viewership exponentially.  We are making a direct effort to invite new members to the Welcome Home Project Community Network on the website, as well as doing the same thing with our two Facebook pages (The Welcome Home Project, and Welcome Home Project), and we invite you to join in this effort and to invite others to join as well.  Part of our intention with this is to begin creating the audience that will then be anticipating the film when finished, which helps with distribution and grant support.  The second goal is to begin to use the sites as platforms for raising the funds necessary to finish and distribute the film.  All donations, large or small, will help and all donors will receive credit on the film for helping to make it happen.  So, thats where we are now, and we invite any and all comments, suggestions and feedback.  Thank you all for being a part of this.

Bill McMillan