NEWS

Ric Hanlon (right) with Veterans Bridge Home.

As North Mecklenburg increases in population, a collaborative group of Veteran Service professionals at the federal, state, and county levels; non-profit organizations; and volunteers have been working steadily to reach out to the veterans and their families who call North Mecklenburg home.

One local organization that is dedicated to connecting veterans with services, support, and social connections in North Mecklenburg is Veteran’s Bridge Home (VBH).

VBH was founded in Charlotte in 2011 to address the needs of the many veterans who were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and struggling to find jobs and housing during an extended recession. Fifteen years later, VBH continues to serve as an entry point for area veterans as they transition from active service to civilian life.

 Ric Hannon is the Network Director for the Metrolina market of VBH. Hannon is an Army combat veteran and a Gold Star brother. Hannon is a big guy with a huge smile who seems to have unlimited energy. When explaining his vision for reaching veterans in the Metrolina area, he speaks excitedly of the many ways that VBH is able to engage with the military and veteran community in order to connect them with needed support.

The Metrolina market of VBH serves Charlotte and the surrounding area, including 15 counties in North Carolina and two counties in South Carolina. In such a vast territory, with large veteran populations, Hannon says that he relies heavily on the valuable partnerships that VBH has built with organizations and individuals in the communities that he serves. Networks of local non-profits and individual volunteers are critical to VBH’s ability to reach deep into communities to find veterans who may have become disconnected or isolated.

In 2025, the Metrolina market of VBH supported 1,596 clients, including military members, veterans, and their families. The top five service requests were for housing and shelter, employment, mental health, social enrichment, and navigating VA benefits.

“Our work is holistic in nature,” says Hannon. “We serve veterans regardless of discharge status, age, background, or belief system. What matters most is that they raised their right hand and served, and we take that responsibility seriously as an organization.”

Source: Veteran’s Bridge Home: 2025 Annual Report

Hannon enjoys reaching out to veterans in creative ways, engaging them in social activities to connect them with other veterans, while also using those social events as opportunities to inform veterans about benefits and services. Hannon publishes a weekly newsletter to highlight local events and provide VA updates. He also manages a calendar full of community events designed to keep veterans engaged, active, and connected.

One significant legislative change that helped VBH to connect many additional veterans to VA healthcare was the passage of The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (PACT Act) in 2022. The PACT Act was landmark legislation that greatly expanded access to care and benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange, burn pits, and other hazardous substances.

The PACT Act created a "presumptive" service connection for over 20 new illnesses, lowering the evidentiary hurdles previously faced by veterans when trying to establish a clear “nexus” between their active service and a diagnosed health condition. In the nearly four years since it was passed, the PACT Act has driven record-high VA claim submissions and over a million new VA health care enrollees.

Ric Hanlon

Hannon is also grateful for a federal grant known as The Staff Sergeant Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program (SSG Fox SPGP). The initial transition from military to civilian life produces the greatest risk of a crisis in veterans. According to Hannon, connecting with veterans early in their transition makes a big difference in preventing isolation and suicide.

The SSgt. Fox Grant Program has allowed community-based organizations like Veterans Bridge Home to expand their suicide prevention efforts beyond clinical settings, helping them to identify disconnected Veterans more quickly.

Additional funding provided by the SSgt. Fox grant also helps VBH to better address social determinants of health, such as difficulty accessing transportation, housing, food, and financial support. Hannon says VBH has been able to provide veterans immediate support with gas cards, grocery cards, and other types of direct financial support that can ease some of the stress of transition and make the veteran feel less isolated.

Hannon emphasizes the critical goal of connecting veterans to VA services as soon as possible. “As a community, we are doing meaningful work, but any veteran not connected to care may be in crisis. Prevention lives in connection, coordination, and showing up early.”

New Veteran Service Office Located in Huntersville Town Hall

Retired Master Sergeant Culeen Shaffer in her office in Huntersville. (Lyn Batty photo)

The North Mecklenburg community has recently made access to services much more convenient by opening a new a full-time County Veteran Service Office inside Huntersville Town Hall. In January 2026, the new VSO opened on the first floor of Huntersville Town Hall at 14704 N. Old Statesville Road.

The office is open for walk-ins and scheduled appointments Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The office provides support in areas such as housing, health care, education, employment, benefits, and social enrichment.

Culeen Shaffer serves as the area’s new dedicated Veteran Service Officer. Shaffer is a retired Air National Guard Master Sergeant with 24 years of military service. In addition to her years of service, Shaffer has a master’s degree in public policy administration and a concentration in non-profit management.

Shaffer says that there are an estimated 7,500 veterans living in North Mecklenburg. Having an office that is closer and easier to access keeps North Mecklenburg area veterans and their families from having to always find their way to Charlotte to seek assistance with VA benefits and services.

Meeting face to face gives Shaffer the opportunity to check in with a veteran about a wide range of issues. Shaffer says that when someone comes to the office for assistance with one issue, she might be able to uncover other needs. Sometimes just chatting for a little while helps Shaffer to discover additional ways the VSO can support the veteran and their family.

In the first two months after the Huntersville Veteran Service Office opened in late January, Shaffer saw 158 individuals. She explained that on average, she interacted with each of the individuals about 3.5 times as she helped them to resolve their issue. The office has assisted clients more than 650 times between January 23 and the end of April.

It is difficult to capture the wide range of questions and requests that people have when they visit the VSO, Shaffer says. Veterans may come in to pick up a property tax exclusion form if they are buying a new house, or they might need help with getting a veteran’s license plate. Family members of deceased veterans sometimes seek assistance with burial costs, or to gather important details about a family member’s military service.

“It varies from day to day,” Shaffer says, “but the bulk of what I do is help people file for disability or appeal a disability claim they filed in the past that was denied at the time.”

Making a disability claim for a health issue that manifests many years after a veteran’s active service dates can be challenging. A veteran may serve in the military for several years and then return home to civilian work, where they are typically covered by private health insurance and non-VA doctors. Sometimes, many years later, they are diagnosed with an illness that they think may be connected to their time in active service, but they don’t know how to fully document the connection.

Shaffer says she has become a pretty good medical researcher through helping veterans to assemble a medical paper trail that documents how a health condition that began or worsened because of their military service manifested slowly over many years. This type of detail work takes time and expertise.

She often helps veterans to gather many years of medical records from their various doctors. She says that, over time, a patient’s records could show a history of headaches, back pain, ringing in the ears, or perhaps a series of blood tests that may fall within the limits of a normal range at first, but then progress steadily toward abnormal levels. These frequently vague symptoms are documented in the patient’s medical records, even if they didn’t immediately result in a diagnosis of a covered condition.

What Shaffer looks for is a link between a veteran’s active service and a later-diagnosed illness or disability. Many health conditions that are linked to active service take some time to show up clearly. Establishing a clearer link with additional evidence can help turn an initial denial of a disability claim into an approval that can lead to access to VA health care and disability benefits. Those additional benefits can be life changing.

Shaffer is enjoying her new office in Huntersville’s Town Hall. She says that she gets great support from the town staff and Huntersville’s elected officials. She says that veterans are finding it easier to get to an in-person appointment with her, even if they are taking a ride-share, or having a friend or family member drive them. It is much less daunting than a long trip down I-77.

Volunteers Ted and Judy Stauffer

Judy and Ted Stauffer at a CTM Event. (News of Davidson photo)

Making personal connections with veterans requires an immense amount of time and energy. That work is often done by dedicated local volunteers like Ted and Judy Stauffer, longtime Davidson residents.

Former Davidson Town Commissioner Ted Stauffer is determined to reach out to as many local veterans as he can. Ted is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with 29 years of service. After military retirement, Ted served two terms on the city council in Inverness, Florida, and also worked as a guardian in the Florida court system.

Judy Stauffer comes from a military family. “My dad was actually a World War I Veteran,” she says. Judy had a 35-year career working for the State of Florida in Adult Protective Services.

“It was always important to me to deal with the veterans,” she said. “I would help make sure that they were getting their paperwork done and getting to the VSOs in the county. It’s just always been in my heart to help veterans.”

Judy still feels a great deal frustration that it took fifty to sixty years and the passage of the PACT Act to finally allow so many Vietnam Veterans, or their survivors, to be compensated for the debilitating health effects of Agent Orange.

It’s important to Ted and Judy to reach out to the Global War on Terrorism veterans who may be suffering now from the health effects of contaminant exposure. Like the Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange, the GWOT veterans were exposed to a range of harmful contaminants from open burn pits and other sources in the Middle East. Now that there is a presumptive list of covered conditions established by the PACT Act to simplify the claims process, Ted and Judy are energized to be out in the community talking about access to VA health coverage and potential disability benefits.

The Stauffers, along with many other community volunteers, are making it their business to seek out veterans wherever they are and help to educate them about the resources that may be available to them and to their families.

Ric Hannon understands the value of direct advocacy that comes from individuals within a community; local volunteers are a huge part of the success of VHB. Hannon understands the value of the connections that are made face-to-face, the importance of information that is shared conversation by conversation. Hannon expresses his gratitude to Ted and Judy “for their support and advocacy for veterans across North Mecklenburg, especially within the Town of Davidson. Their leadership and commitment to the veteran community have been instrumental in getting veterans connected.”

Continuing the Mission (CTM) in Davidson Trains Service Dogs for Local Vets

Suzy Lutz and Robert Lutz, Colonel, U.S. Army - Retired, and Continuing the Mission

Continuing The Mission (CTM) is another important non-profit organization that has arisen in response to the critical needs of local veterans. CTM was founded by Davidson resident Suzy Lutz in 2016. She operates CTM with her husband, Robert Lutz (Davidson College Class of 1987), who retired from the Army in 2017 after a 30-year career.

CTM provides fully-trained Assistance Dogs at no cost to qualifying Veterans. They have established a birth-to-placement model that immerses their dogs in continuous social and functional activities starting at 8-10 weeks of age.

CTM’s stated mission is to “improve the quality of life for Veterans living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST) by providing them with uniquely trained canine partners.”

Since they began their work in 2016, CTM has consistently trained and provided at least 4-5 assistance dogs to veterans in North Carolina each year.

Suzy Lutz and her pups in training are a fixture at nearly every veteran-related event in Davidson. The pups serve as an adorable and potent reminder of the importance of veterans in our area.

Flag Placing Event in Davidson for Memorial Day

As Memorial Day approaches, local Veterans, neighbors, and friends are planning to gather in Davidson on Sunday, May 17, for a service project that has become an annual tradition. Each year a group gathers to places to place flags on the graves of Davidson’s Veterans in Mimosa Cemetery, the Christian Aid Society Cemetery, and the Davidson College Cemetery.

A previous group that gathered to place flags at the graves of Davidson Veterans included 17 Veterans (Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force).

The yearly practice of honoring Davidson’s veterans by placing flags is especially meaningful to Davidson native and former Town Commissioner and Mayor, John Woods. A veteran and Gold Star brother, Woods values any opportunity to join with fellow veterans for a service project or social activity.

Woods explains that “one of the important aspects of service is the intense camaraderie established when individuals are pulled together to face serious and sometimes threatening experiences. When that greater assignment “ends,” vets often feel unmoored, isolated, cut-off, and forgotten as the world moves on.”

“The activities supporting veterans encourage the ‘never forget’ mentality and are a positive encouragement that we are not taken for granted, that our service is acknowledged, appreciated, and remembered.”

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If veterans or their family members are seeking assistance from Veterans Bridge Home, they are  encouraged to visit the website or to complete the Request Assistance form here.

To make an appointment at the new Veteran Service Office in Huntersville, call 980-314-1913 or email Culeen.Shaffer@MeckNC.gov. While appointments are preferred, walk-ins are also welcome.