Operation SEAs the Day to honor veterans and their families in Bethany Beach next week

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A charity organization in Bethany Beach will be honoring veterans next week by giving them a chance to vacation with their families, free of charge.

Every year, Operation SEAs the Day hosts its Warrior Family Beach Week. Wounded, active duty and veteran military service members and their families come from across the country to stay in homes donated by local volunteers.

“It’s sort of our way of giving back to the families of the wounded veterans and the wounded veterans themselves,” said David Bradley, a board member with the organization. “Like the welcome that they never received when they came home.”

Bradley has been volunteering with the group since 2014. He himself is a Navy veteran, and wanted to find a way to give back to wounded veterans after he moved to Sussex County.

“You get to know these families and very incredible people, American heroes,” Bradley said. “And so it’s very well worth every single thing that we do.”

Operation SEAs the Day was created in 2013. Becky Johns, one of the organization’s co-founders, had multiple family members who served in the military. She said she had worked with private homeowners at the time who had open vacation homes in the area during the month of September.

“We talked about figuring out a way to kind of seize the moment, or seize the month, and see if we could get enough homeowners to offer [their homes] for our veterans,” Johns said.

She said right from the beginning, the local community was on board with the idea, with businesses offering free meals, activities and services to the event. She added that people who offer the homes for the families to stay in often return year after year.

“I would call everyone and see if they were interested and it was like, ‘Of course, you don’t even have to ask,’” Johns said. “It’s amazing, and the support from the local community is just very humbling, very patriotic.”

Since then, the organization has hosted more than 1,000 military families in Bethany Beach.

What the week looks like

Operations SEAs the Day works with other established veteran foundations to select participating families. Anywhere between 25 to 30 families take part in the beach week each year, according to Bradley.

“Very Important Families,” as organizers call them, can participate in activities throughout the week. That includes things like boat excursions, therapeutic horseback riding, golfing and a spa day. However, Bradley said the events are optional. Organizers want to give the families an opportunity to spend time together at the beach, especially if they have been apart from each other for a long time.

“They can reconnect with their families. They can just relax and breathe,” Bradley said.

Though the families stay in Bethany Beach, the events throughout the week take place across Sussex County.

There are four mandatory special events: a welcome reception, family barbecue, farewell breakfast and an “Evening of Honor.” It includes a parade that spans from Bethany Beach all the way to Selbyville. Families are escorted by the Delaware State Police and other emergency services personnel to the Freeman Arts Pavilion. There, they are provided with a dinner and concert.

Bradley said the parade is the highlight of the week, and that typically there are people lining the route wearing red, white and blue and waving flags. He said there were about a couple thousand people at last year’s parade cheering on the families.

To Johns, children of veterans attending the parade is particularly meaningful.

“To witness their parents be honored in that way, to see their faces so amazed, that’s priceless,” Johns said.

This year’s parade will be held on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and event organizers told WHYY News that they are anticipating a large turnout.

Connecting with other families

Families are assigned an “ambassador family,” or volunteers that can help them throughout the week.

Joan Gordon, a volunteer with Operation SEAs the Day, said that she and her late husband, former Bethany Beach Mayor Jack Gordon, became friends with a family they had hosted in the past. After Gordon’s husband died last year, the family traveled nearly four hours to Bethany Beach to be with her.

“It was just so touching and important to me that they were able to do that, that they made that effort to make that trip,” Gordon said. “That was the most heartfelt moment that I’ve had.”

Gordon said that every year she volunteers, she looks forward to seeing the whole week come together.

“It all just makes me realize how fortunate we are that we live the kind of life that we do, and that if it weren’t for young men and women like these people who come, that we wouldn’t be able to enjoy life as much as we do,” she said.

The Very Important Families can also receive help from alumni families, which have participated in the week in the past and have been invited back. Usually about five alumni families return.

JB Barr is a retired first sergeant for the U.S. Army, and a former Very Important Family member. He and his family also participated as alumni. He said it was an eye opening experience, particularly during the parade where he felt he was appreciated for his service.

According to Barr, the week gave him a good opportunity to meet with fellow veterans and reminisce about their time in service as well as talk about new experiences.

“I gained so many resources from that one event by sharing and staying in contact with the guys that I met that I otherwise wouldn’t have got so freely,” Barr said.

The experience was valuable not only for Barr, but also his family. He said his kids got to meet others with similar backgrounds, while his wife was able to share resources with military spouses and caregivers.

Barr also said that the week helps families who might not have been able to have a vacation otherwise.

“A lot of veterans financially couldn’t do that for a week,” he said. “That is a stress that’s taken off of us by itself.”

Barr had retired from the U.S. Army while he was stationed in Germany. He said he didn’t have an official retirement ceremony when he returned to the U.S. in 2010.

“I just came home. I was by myself. There was no party. There was no parade,” he said.

When he returned as alumni, he had told another family that he never had an official retirement. With their help, Barr was able to receive a special ceremony at Fort Miles in Lewes with his family in attendance.

“It was huge for me because it was a closure,” Barr said. “Without Operation SEAs the Day, that would have never happened.”

Families will arrive at Bethany Beach Tuesday, and stay through Sunday.