MMIA, Smithfield Foods furnish local Army veteran's home

Oct. 3—LAURINBURG — Just over a year ago Illisha Lear moved to Laurinburg after serving in the U.S. Army for three years.

After the decision, how to fill her new home soon became a major hurdle.

"A lot of veterans struggle after getting out," Lear said. "You're trying to get your mind around civilian living again because you're so used to the structured mindset ... I was just looking for assistance for whenever I moved here — the furnishings for my new home — because I have four children. It is just me."

She sought out assistance online and with the help of Google came across Military Missions In Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting veterans with disabilities such as herself, as well as homeless veterans, members of the Armed Forces, and their loving, supporting families. In the past 14 years, Military Missions In Action has directly assisted over 126,000 Veterans and their families, allocating $.90 of every $1 raised to their vital programs.

Lear was approved for the "Homes for Healing," a program that provides new and gently used household furnishings to aid veterans, active-duty service members, recently unhoused veterans, and their family members.

The result one year later, was the delivery and placement of a truck full of furniture that included mattresses, couches, side tables and other needed furnishing for her Laurinburg home on Monday.

"I was worried so long about furnishing the home, keeping up the home and I'm remodeling. So, this helped out tremendously," Lear said.

Lear is not a singular case of veterans in need of housing services. In fact, the need for furnishing continues to grow, according to Greg Gebhardt, executive director of Military Missions in Action. Gebhardt said this year alone, requests for furniture assistance are up 97% from the previous year.

"When I started as the executive director on Jan. 1, we had 53 veterans and families waiting for furniture deliveries across the state," he said.

The Lears were the 77th family served this year and yet there are still 36 families waiting for deliveries, Gebhardt said.

This is why MMIA relies on partnerships like Smithfields who made a generous donation to and assisted with the delivery of Lear's furniture.

"This is our first partnership with Military Missions In Action. We have had a standing commitment to support veterans and members of our armed services over, gosh, almost a hundred-plus years now of operations ... It's an honor to be able to partner with an organization so committed to that work already so it helps us tremendously in what we're trying to do," said Steve Evans, vice president for Community Development for Smithfield Foods.

Now that the furniture needs are met, Lear can focus on school. She is studying fine art with plans to transfer to The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

"I was brought up with assistance. You know Food Stamps, welfare, projects. You know it's hard. There's always a statistic. You always have to rise above and that was my point because I didn't want my children to grow up like me," Lear said.

Tomeka Sinclair is the editor of the Laurinburg Exchange. She can be reached at tsinclair@laurinburgexchange.com.