Therapy Pools Built for Rehabilitation of Veterans
San Juan Pools and Pioneer Valley Fiberglass Pools & Spas team up to provide a therapy pool at the Northeast Veteran Training & Rehabilitation Center in Gardner, Mass.
By Sarah Casey
As the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan wages on and more soldiers are returning home with injuries acquired in combat, the need for veteran rehabilitation centers has increased dramatically. According to GlobalSecurity.org, the leading source of background information and developing news stories in the fields of defense and homeland security, over 30,000 U.S. service members have been reported wounded since the war began in 2003.
Unfortunately, many veterans return from combat to areas with inadequate rehabilitation options. It is for this reason that Kirk Sullivan, president of San Juan Pools in Lakeland, Fla., and Clarence Kaye, owner of Pioneer Valley Fiberglass Pools & Spas, LLC in Holyoke, Mass., teamed up in 2005 for a project to aid veterans in need. They donated fiberglass pools and created at-home rehabilitation centers, free of cost to their recipients. Since then, the initiative has taken off and allowed them to build commercial rehab facilities.
The initial projects Sullivan and Kaye collaborated on benefited individual veterans on a very large, but personal, scale. Many individual rehabilitation pools were built in the backyards of returned veterans who either could not access or could not afford aquatic rehabilitation treatment for their injuries. Now, they’re taking things one step further.
“The projects for individuals were a good donation,” Kaye says, “[so] I asked, ‘Why can’t we do this on a regional basis? Why can’t we do this for a facility that will treat a lot of soldiers, not just one family?’”
Sullivan expressed wholehearted agreement with Kaye’s desire to expand the reach of their donated rehabilitation pools. “This [mindset] began to change the scope [of the projects] from private therapy sessions to family and group sessions,” Sullivan says. “Given that as our starting point, we looked to our dealers to see if there were opportunities in their communities, and we came across an opportunity in New England.”
And with that, the planning for the Northeast Veteran Training and Rehabilitation Center (NVTRC) of Gardner, Mass., began.
Since October 2008, the NVTRC has undergone over a year of planning and construction, and is quickly nearing completion. It opened for commercial use in January 2010, and is the newest addition to the donating duo’s list of nonprofit rehabilitation pool facilities.
Sullivan and Kaye agreed that they were both pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of support and willingness to participate in the build from the community in Gardner. They were approached by many people who asked how they could help.
“Because we’ve been [donating pools] every year, some people have contributed for multiple years,” Sullivan says, “so we have created a logo and group we call the ‘San Juan Seabees.’” The name was inspired by the participation of an Iraq war veteran and former Seabee, Peter Reed. While volunteering with Sullivan and his crew on the NVTRC project, Reed informed them on how in the military, Seabees (slang for “CB’s” or Construction Battalions) are known in the United States Navy for having a history of building bases and paving thousands of miles of roadway and airstrips. Appropriately, the name stuck.
“We went through [our dealers], and our tile manufacturer made a custom tile mosaic of the Seabee logo [for the pool]. We also wanted to make t-shirts to represent that philosophy, but because it was a military logo, we changed it. Instead of carrying a hammer, our Seabee has a squirt gun!” Sullivan gave “San Juan Seabees” t-shirts out to all the volunteers on the NVTRC project as a thank-you for their participation.
This rehab and training center is capable of serving hundreds, even thousands, of injured soldiers. the NVTRC sits on approximately 10 acres of land, which includes 12 duplex housing units to house soldiers and their families during treatment. The center’s aquatic therapy room consists of a fully-enclosed, 40-foot-long pool with a swim current by Endless Pools and an attached spa. The pool uses a saltwater chlorinator by Goldline Controls for sanitizing, and its chemistry levels can be monitored and adjusted remotely.
Due to the attention the NVTRC has received, another larger project is in the works for the San Juan Seabees.
“This past summer, I was contacted by a Chaplain at a base in Iraq,” Sullivan says, “and he asked if we would participate in building pools on their base. We’re trying to expand the scope…and make these pools available to soldiers while they are deployed.” This way, soldiers can begin therapy immediately. It may also help lessen the number of veterans returning with cognitive issues such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sullivan says.
The NVTRC, as well as upcoming projects conducted by Sullivan, Kaye, and their troop of volunteers, are great advancements in both the realms of veterans’ rehabilitation and pool building.
“You get a lot more back when you give,” Kaye says, “And there are [soldiers] sacrificing so much for us today--to be able to give this back [to them] is just a little piece of what we’d like to do.”
Photo courtesy of Pioneer Valley Fiberglass Pools & Spas