Caring Through Crafts

Through Repurpose with Purpose, Southwest® supports military service members and veterans.

Repurpose with Purpose is one of many ways Southwest gives back to communities across the nation. Through this initiative and with the help of partner organizations, we upcycle, downcycle, and recycle thousands of pounds of discarded material into useful products.

Help Heal Veterans partners with Southwest to provide free therapeutic craft kits to military service members and veterans who are receiving medical care throughout the U.S. By providing physical benefits like restoring motor skills, improving concentration, and enhancing rehabilitation, the kits support the healing process for challenges like traumatic brain injuries. Veterans can also experience psychological benefits, such as relieving symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Southwest supplies Help Heal Veterans with leather from repurposed aircraft seat covers for use in the kits. Through this outlet, more than 90,000 pounds of leather from Southwest seat covers have been given a new life. Help Heal Veterans offers 11 leather kits that use the upcycled Southwest leather, including ones to make wallets and footballs, with new designs in the works. Help Heal Veterans works with veterans and clinicians to provide the right kits to meet veterans’ needs, and they often become part of rehabilitation treatment plans.

For 47 years, Help Heal Veterans has provided 31 million therapeutic arts and crafts kits, produced by veterans and military family members in Winchester, California, to over 18 million service men and women. These volunteers include Army and Air Force veteran John Eddleman (pictured), who works weekly on the kits. Partnerships with VA medical centers, military hospitals, senior living facilities, and veteran’s transitional programs allow the organization to reach 200,000-plus veterans each year.

Through Repurpose with Purpose, Southwest is able not only to bring therapeutic craft kits to veterans, but also to work with additional partners to support workforce development for human trafficking survivors and adults with disabilities.

Visit swa.is/Repurposing and healvets.org to learn more. —Courtney Miller, Community Outreach