Flanders Fields

https://secure.qgiv.com/event/laurenelkinssupport/

We need to ask something of this community.

Daniel Elkins is a Green Beret. Four deployments. Years in the Special Forces Qualification Course. He founded the Special Operations Association of America so that the men and women who served alongside him would have someone in their corner. He has spent his entire adult life showing up for other people.

Now his wife Lauren is fighting glioblastoma, a grade 4 brain cancer, the most aggressive there is. Two weeks ago surgeons at OHSU removed a tumor from her brain. What follows is chemo, radiation, and a road most families never have to imagine. The prognosis is measured in years, not decades.

Lauren and Daniel have a twenty-two month old daughter named Sloan. She weighs about thirty pounds. For the next six months, her mother is not allowed to pick her up. Lauren cannot work, drive, or lift more than eight pounds while she fights for the time and the good days she needs to be the mother she has waited her whole life to be.

Daniel is not good at asking. He said so himself. Men who have spent their lives carrying the weight for everyone else rarely are. But he is asking now because pride cannot come before his wife having every possible day with their daughter.

Insurance covers the surgery and the treatment. It does not cover the caregiver Lauren needs. It does not cover travel, lodging, prescriptions, or the simple cost of staying afloat while a family fights to stay together. The conservative number for what is ahead is around $250,000.

This is one of our own. A Green Beret asking for help for the woman who held his entire life together while he was downrange. If you can give, give. If you can’t, share this. Pray for Lauren. Pray for Sloan. Pray for Daniel.
We will be sharing more on our own veterans soon. But today, this family needs us.

Mental health doesn’t end on May 31st.

As summer arrives and calendars fill up with vacations, ballgames, cookouts, and busy schedules, it becomes easy to push self-care to the bottom of the list. But healing, rest, connection, and checking in on yourself — and on each other — matter all year long.

For many veterans, first responders, and those quietly fighting battles no one else can see, summer doesn’t make the struggle disappear. In fact, busy seasons can sometimes make isolation, anxiety, depression, and PTSD feel even heavier.

So as we head into the summer months, here’s your reminder:✔️ Check in on your buddies.✔️ Make time to rest.✔️ Ask for help when you need it.✔️ Keep showing up for yourself and others.

You don’t have to carry everything alone.

Mental health awareness may have a month, but mental health matters every single day. Let’s not let the conversation — or the care — fall off when life gets busy.

Flandersfields.org/donate