Site Title

WELCOME HOME WISHLIST

HELPING THOSE WHO SERVED US, REGAIN THE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE THEY DESERVE

Welcome Home Wishlist gives formerly homeless veterans their first items needed to make their new transitional housing a home. We coordinate with Community Hope which is a project run through the Veteran’s Administration to help formerly homeless veterans. These Veterans have successfully completed an inpatient PTSD program, employment assistance program, and now have been assisted to gain a residence to live in. Often though these residences are not furnished, do not have household items like small appliances, utensils, towels, bedding, lamps, and things you and I take for granted..
These items are not only essential to the day to day of the veteran, but they make the house feel like a home. Who deserves a feeling a home brings more than a veteran who served our nation.

How are we funded, through generous donations of the public, and working in conjunction with clubs such as Rotary Clubs, Veterans Associations, and others.

How did WHW start?

Welcome Home Wishlist was sparked through our founder’s membership in his local Vietnam Veteran group more than 15 years ago. Working with the “Community of Hope”, Michael Rahill who was a two tour combat vet himself, would get a selected formerly homeless veterans wishes for items to start his/her new life in their new residence after completing an intensive program affiliated with the VA. With funds donated he and fellow veterans would acquire all the requested items and then meet and deliver these items directly to the formerly homeless veteran to start their new life.

Why did it start?

No one knows what it is like to serve your country and not be welcomed home better than a Vietnam Veteran! While some veterans were known as the greatest generation, Vietnam Veterans were not labeled with such titles. The treatment upon their return was so terrible that prior to deplaning upon their return to American shores, commanding officers instructed these soldiers frequently to get into their civilian clothes prior to walking through an airport. They were spit upon, called horrible names and never thanked for their service. Many of these vets worked hard such as our founder to simply blend back in and rarely mentioned their service unless they were around other vets. Some with the help of families adjusted well, some fell to drugs, alcohol, homelessness and suicide. With his Vietnam Veterans group, Michael J. Rahill was not about to let this occur to another generation of veterans.

WHW Today

Sadly our founder has passed in 2021, but his mission continues with over 200 formerly homeless assisted in getting the items they need to start their new lives . Michael Rahill was a value driven man. First and foremost to him was his family, second was the Bible verse, “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for ones friends,” It was a verse carved in stone for him figuratively and literally from when he first read it on a monument in Astoria Park in Queens, New York as a young boy. The third was “Leave no man behind”. The first drove him daily in life, the second drove him to serve his nation in the military and especially volunteer to go to combat much like 71% of all Vietnam Veterans did. The third drove him in his serving of man, and serving specifically of Veterans nearly as a full time vocation upon his retirement from his career as a communications worker. His mission did not cease at his passing, thanks to his wife combining her own service organization and his love of helping veterans. She continues his mission to this day in the exact same manner he did. You could say they are both “On a Mission from God”.

Reflecting on the past to help other veterans start a new future.

Survivors guilt is a very real thing as captured in Lee Teeters oil painting titled “Reflections”. We have heard it first hand from our founder, after all that “why was I the one that made it home?” Imagine not only being traumatized by war, but traumatized by the notion of being the one or ones who got to make it home and carry on a life most take for granted. It was this survivor’s guilt that, Michael Rahill did not bring him down, but drove him to use his good fortune of making it home, holding a career, being a productive community member, to help those who did not adjust so well, along with his brother veterans from his Vietnams Veterans group. With his wife always by his side, they made sure if he ever had to look through the wall like this veteran, his brothers would look back and say , “Job well done!”

So how can you help a Veteran, by donating to our non-profit – Welcome Home WL, a NJ Nonprofit Corp.

ID # 33-4612563

email – welcomehomewishlist@aol.com

“Greater love has no one than this:

to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,”

John 15:13