The events of September 11, 2001, deeply affected many people in our nation. Janice Buckley was one of them. She felt the call to support our nation’s military families but wasn’t sure what to do. So she baked brownies for the National Guard.
This began a long journey of volunteer work for the United Service Organizations. From there she met many military families and learned different ways to help.
At one point Janice gathered gift certificates around Washington and gave them to soldiers arriving home from Iraq.
Determined to do more for our nation’s most important resource, Janice founded Operation Homefront Washington (OHWA) in 2004. It became a chapter of the national Operation Homefront organization. By 2008, OHWA had served more than 29,000 families and had grown to more than 250 volunteers.
Janice realized that the organization could do more for wounded service members if the focus was fully on them. In 2009, OHWA left the national organization and changed the OHWA name to Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors®. This change reflects its focused mission on wounded warriors and their families.
