Bryan Doe, Veteran Outreach Program Specialist with the Springfield Vet Center, will be at Welcome Home Place Jan. 25, along with Phil Milgrom of The Centered Place in Warren, who will help people with meditative yoga.
Welcome Home Place is open to veterans of any era, active-duty military, National Guard members and families and friends. This month’s gathering will run from 9 a.m. to noon, with yoga beginning at 11 a.m. Welcome Home Place is held at Holyoke Community College’s E2E Center, 79 Main St., Ware.
Bryan Doe
Doe, who has worked at the Springfield Vet Center for more than six years, is an Army veteran who returned home in 2010. “When I first got home I had my bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and was going to go into law enforcement,” he said. Instead, he was inspired to go back to school, where he got a master’s degree in counseling and began working with his fellow veterans. “A lot of vets talk about looking for that ‘sense of purpose’ and I’ve found that,” he said about his work.
Doe plans to talk to people at Welcome Home Place about services available to veterans in the area. “We partner with dozens of community organizations; there are close to 30 in the Springfield area.” He helps veterans find the resources they need, then helps them with the process to get those resources. He makes sure they know how to contact their local Veteran Service Officer (VSO) and spends time at hospitals, counseling centers, substance abuse treatment centers, schools and bases — wherever veterans, active-duty military and their families might be.
He says most of the employees at the Springfield Vet Center are veterans, which is helpful. “When you have that veteran connection, people realize you’ve ‘been there, done that,’” he said. He’s able to share his own experiences with trauma and reintegration, plus he has the expertise to know where and how to get the services a veteran wants.
Phil Milgrom
Phil Milgrom will lead a practice of meditative yoga between 11 a.m. and noon. Milgrom, of The Centered Place in Warren, specializes in Svaroopa® yoga, which focuses on stress relief, health and inner peace.
Please join use for all or part of Welcome Home Place from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. We’ll have coffee and pastries, conversation and friendship.