- One nonprofit's mission to help
rehabilitate wounded veterans
through unique outdoor programming
Hey y'all, and welcome to Common Good.
I'm Luria Freeman.
Today we're talking with Bill Campbell,
the Virginia regional coordinator
of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing.
Founded in 2005, the project provides support
to active military service members and veterans
through fly fishing and associated activities
including education and outings across the nation.
- It doesn't make any difference really what branch
of service you come from.
We don't care.
You speak our language and we speak yours,
Project Healing Waters started in 2005
as the brainchild of Captain Ed Nicholson.
He's retired, but he's U.S. Navy.
We have since grown to around 240 programs nationwide.
We even have two programs in the state of Alaska.
Captain Nicholson, Ed Nicholson,
was being treated at Walter Reed Hospital around 2005
for cancer.
He was feeling a little down
and he remembered how much fun it was to go fishing
when he grew up.
So on the weekends, he would take his rod and his waders
and go out and go fly fishing.
And as he was leaving the hospital,
he would pass through areas of the hospital
where there were combat personnel
that were being treated there at Walter Reed
for combat-related injuries.
So he basically just went up to one of the guys and says,
I don't believe fly fishing is hard to learn.
I believe it's like any sport.
The activities that we provide,
in the locations where we provide it,
distracts them from all of the things
that are going bad in their life or wrong in their life.
and where they can be distracted from all of that stuff.
And then we let them focus on something
that is healthy, that is constructive,
and that occurs in beautiful, peaceful places.
I hear a lot of participants tell me
And so the rod building is a big part of what we do.
There is method to our madness.
Tying flies and building rods
requires some type of manual dexterity.
And people who have limited upward mobility issues
because of their service experience
get to work on that manual dexterity as they tie flies
and build rods.
So it's therapeutic in that respect.
I was looking for a way
to take my people fishing over wild trout.
Best place that those fish exist
is in Shenandoah National Park
here in the state of Virginia.
And it really doesn't make a lot of difference
whether you're trout fishing, bass fishing,
saltwater fishing.
Just the idea of being outdoors
away from the day-to-day struggles of life
and in some place where whatever struggles you left behind
don't matter anymore, is restorative, I guess is the word.
That's it for today.
I'd like to thank Subaru for presenting today's episode.
Through their partnership with the National Park Foundation
during the Subaru Share the Love Event,
Subaru is able to increase public awareness and engagement
with our National Park System
and provide critical funding to programs and projects
that help protect America's more than 400 national parks.
Thanks so much for watching Common Good.