Check Out Joe Lewis’ Story

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Joe Lewis.

Hi Joe, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
My father was a Marine infantryman in Vietnam. If he hadn’t come home, I would never have been born.

As I got older I thought about the long-term impact when someone in our military passes away, and how that changes everything for their families. In high school, I joined the Army National Guard and turned 18 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma as an enlisted field artillery cannon crewman in training.

I was in the National Guard throughout college, and then joined the Marine Corps and became a fighter pilot afterward. I lost my good friend and next-door neighbor in flight school to a crash shortly after we completed training. He had a young son and it really impacted me that he would grow up without the guidance and support of his dad.

Later my back was broken and I couldn’t continue to fly jets, so I ended up getting out of the Marine Corps and going to fly for American Airlines for just about 5 months, and then 9-11 occurred. I felt called to join the military again and went on active duty with the Air National Guard flying a non-ejection seat reconnaissance platform. I ended up supporting the Coast Guard and law enforcement from national down to local task forces across the country, and when I was in the Marine Corps I did carrier operations with the Navy.

I lost friends in every branch of the service and saw the risks law enforcement was taking right here at home. All but one of those friends had young children. Two of them in the Marine Corps had babies on the way they never even got to see. It all really made me wonder how my two sons would do if I didn’t make it home.

As I was nearing retirement, I was at soccer games for my sons and was watching the goodness of them interacting with the other players, and the coaches, and burning energy doing something healthy. It was at that moment when I felt a clear calling that I was supposed to work to make sure children of our fallen had that opportunity. I researched and found out there were over 16,000 children of the fallen military under the age of 18 at that time.

I found there was a gap in long-term support for these children. After initial grief counseling, there were some organizations supporting them with summer camps, birthday gifts, or some short outings, and then there were a lot of organizations providing scholarships once they became adults in addition to the Frye Bill from the VA, which provides tuition, books, and a stipend for college.

There was nothing designed to keep them engaged in healthy activities in their local community year-round to help them get mentoring from a coach or instructor and keep them engaged instead of being withdrawn and depressed or running with the wrong crowd.

I researched and found that the children of our fallen are at risk of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, dropping out of school, and even suicide after the traumatic loss of their parents. I felt strongly there should be an organization supporting them during these most crucial formative years of childhood while they had to face life without the guidance and support of one of their biggest mentors.

I knew I had to make supporting them my full-time pursuit. It seemed fitting to include our first responders, many of whom happen to be veterans or are in the National Guard because they risk their lives for our country and communities too. After I retired from the Air Force with 25 years of combined service in the Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force, I formed Angels of America’s Fallen (Angels) in 2013 in Colorado Springs.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Hah, no, it hasn’t been a smooth road at all. I had no knowledge of nonprofits when I decided to start Angels, so I read some books and enrolled in a Masters of Public Affairs course to learn while I was getting it going. I completed the master’s and three graduate certificates in Nonprofit Management, Nonprofit Program Evaluation, and Nonprofit Fund Development to ensure we were building the right foundation for the organization because the mission deserves it.

While I was going to night school for this I was running Angels during the day full time. It was very challenging in part because I moved to Colorado Springs without having ever been stationed there and not knowing anyone there. Starting a nonprofit in a town where you have no friends, former coworkers, or extended family to help is a really difficult thing to do. It took time to build a network and gain footing.

I didn’t know anyone with significant financial means, so there was no financial backer except for me at the beginning. It was my wife and I doing everything at the beginning. She had been a teacher and had run home child care programs and curriculum development on military bases, and had the perfect background to develop our program side for interaction with the families.

We worked from home to keep overhead low, and all employees for Angels work from home today for the same reason. We want as much of the donor’s dollars to go to program output as possible. It was a challenge working from home with my wife after I had been gone so much during my career. It took us a lot of adjusting to make it work. It was hard to raise funds, so I went the first four years with no salary and was donating from my savings to help pay for kids’ activities.

My wife had to remind me we had kids too, and we needed to have money to raise them and get them through college too. I was actually putting the organization at risk by not accepting a salary too. If I had been hit by a bus, there would have been nothing in the budget to pay anyone else, and the organization could have folded.

Running Angels is more than a full-time job, the business of the business is during the day, but fundraisers and interacting with the families we support are often nights, weekends, and holidays. It’s difficult to hear so much tragic loss from mostly really young widows and know how much they and their children are struggling. It’s disappointing to hear how often the system fails these families and many of them receive no benefits.

It can be very disheartening to be turned down for a grant we apply for or to hear of billions being donated by our government to other countries for all sorts of reasons when I know the children of those who gave their lives for Our Country are left behind. That being said, there are many positives I can speak about. I anticipate my opportunity for that will come in the next sections.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m the CEO of Angels of America’s Fallen, and I honor the dreams of our fallen military and first responders. by supporting the dreams of their children. We empower children with our fallen military, police, fire, and EMS heroes by engaging them in positive activities throughout their entire childhood.

We support the children not just at one time but through a commitment to see them engaged positively in healthy activities such as sports, music, and other arts all year, every year, all the way until 19 years old without having to reapply. These provided activities have coaches or instructors who can help provide some positive mentoring the children are missing without the guidance and support of their fallen hero.

We allow the children to try as many activities as required to find a passion that is a fit for them at their current stage of development, and they can change their activity as their interests vary while they grow. This allows them to develop their own personal identity, increase self-confidence, and write their own story of success rather than growing up in the shadow of a hero.

Although we cover the costs of their activities, our support is much more than just writing checks; we follow up with and encourage the children, and share in celebrating their successes throughout each year. This long-term engagement is crucial for creating a true lasting positive impact.

Our Voices program allows children and surviving spouses to tell their stories and help others who are in similar situations. There is healing in helping, and we see our Voices participants grow and heal as they attend conferences, fundraising events, and performances across the country to raise awareness about the issues facing families who have lost a parent in service to our country.

Through our Peer Support Program, widowed spouses have a platform to support one another as they redefine family life after the traumatic loss of their spouse. Through shared life experiences and circumstances, peers are better able to establish relationships of trust and support with those in need of assistance. We also provide Intakes and Referrals, Outreach, and individualized person-centered Case Management, allowing parents and children to set goals for success and determine challenge points utilizing a strengths-based, trauma-informed approach.

I’m proud of what the organization has grown to become, and how deliberately it was formed to make the process very easy for busy single parents who mostly haven’t even dealt with their own grief yet because they went into survival mode to take care of their children. I’m proud we have supported children for over 11 years and have seen some of them graduate at 19 years old and go on to complete college, have careers, get married, and have their own children.

I’m proud we operate with real transparency and we are good stewards of the donor’s dollars they entrust to us to do good with. I’m proud of the kids we support and their parents or guardians. I’m proud of the amazing staff of very caring and very competent people we have at Angels.

We track how many positive interactions outside the home we have been able to provide the children we support. We call these activity sessions, and they comprise the number of times the children go to their activity for practice or performance. In 2023, Angels supported 661 children and their 415 parents/guardians nationwide with the children participating in 41,836 activity sessions with a coach or instructor.

I spoke about challenges in the previous section. Here I’d like to speak about the positives. We see so much strength and resilience in the families we support. It’s very inspiring. We see the goodness of people who donate their time as volunteers and their dollars as donors. We see businesses choosing us as their charity and their staff really engaging to support these children. We get to see the kids grow and develop over time, and we get to share in their successes as they compete or perform in their chosen activity.

We hear very positive feedback from our families about the impact it has on their lives. Angels are a big family, with a lot of very supportive people all coming together to pay it forward to the children of those who gave their lives for us. It’s very fulfilling. For me, it’s very personal. About two years after starting Angels, an Air Force Master Sergeant I used to supervise was killed in a plane crash and we’re supporting his son and daughter.

What does success mean to you?
I would define success for Angels as honoring the commitment we make to the kids that when we enroll them, we will support them every year all the way until their 19th birthday without them ever having to reapply. Success is the children being engaged in whatever activity is the right fit for them at their current stage of development, and them knowing there are good people out there who care about them, and they remember and honor their fallen parent.

I’ve already had a successful career in the military. I feel successful if my two sons are good, responsible working adults who are independent and strong. I feel successful with my marriage of over 32 years.

Pricing:

• We budget $2,500 per child to support them each year.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aoafallen.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aoafallen
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngelsOfAmericasFallen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/angels-of-america’s-fallen
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AoAFallen