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Get Involved: Project Healing Waters

Project Healing Waters

The Platte Rivers Program of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing serves veterans in northeasteastern Colorado and Southeastern Wyoming. It’s a totally volunteer organization that takes veterans fishing. Their goal is to help veterans experience solace through fly fishing. They also teach fly casting, fly tying, and rod building.

It was a participant in the program that coined their slogan, “The water holds no scars.”
Personal change comes through concentration, the demands of fly fishing, and the water itself. It's like therapy without the therapist or church without the preacher. It’s something they can't explain, but they see the transformations again and again.

Each January, the program offers fly tying classes in Cheyenne, Laramie and Fort Collins. There is no cost to veterans for the fishing trips, fly tying or for the first rod they build.

Volunteers with the program help teach fly casting, fly tying, and rod building. Others might cook on one of the program’s overnight trips. Program Lead Duane Cook calls the volunteers “the bridge back.” Through the common pursuit of fishing, the volunteers help veterans reconnect with non-veterans and society.

Credit Project Healing Waters

The first Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing program was started in 2005 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. There are now over 206 operational programs serving disabled veterans and disabled military service personnel from all 50 states and Germany.

Last year more than 200,000 hours were donated by over 3500 volunteers. This enabled more than 7400 disabled veterans and disabled military service personnel to participate in Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing program activities around the country.

To volunteer with Platte Rivers Program of Project Healing Waters click here.
 

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