Serving Those Who Served: Preventing Veteran Suicide

On 400 acres of scenic farmland in Fayetteville, Georgia, there is an inspiring organization dedicated to serving youth and veterans called Camp Southern Ground. Founded by GRAMMY award-winning artist Zac Brown, Camp Southern Ground offers workforce and wellness transition programs to help veterans transition to civilian life after military service.

Honoring those who have served our country includes recognizing the strengths, resilience and leadership of veterans and military families and ensuring they have access to the support that helps them thrive. This includes resources that promote healthy relationships, physical and mental well-being, financial stability and successful transitions from military to civilian life.

“Camp Southern Ground’s mission is to provide experiences for individuals to recognize and magnify their unique gifts within themselves and others to help them profoundly change the world,” said Lacy Gunnoe, well-being director for veteran programs at Camp Southern Ground.

Across the country, veteran-serving organizations like Camp Southern Ground play a vital role in the lives of veterans and military families, providing essential services like coordination of care, housing and mental health support and job training. These programs help protect the health and well-being of veterans by addressing the stressors that can put them at risk for suicide, an ongoing national challenge with veterans dying by suicide at a higher rate than the general population.

To help veteran-serving organizations design effective programs, collect data, improve their programs and effectively communicate their impact, the CDC Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Safe States Alliance partner on the Veteran Suicide Prevention Evaluation Program. Since 2018, this program has supported 24 veteran-serving organizations, helping them improve data collection and reporting practices, apply proven strategies for suicide prevention and communicate the results of their work.

Through the program, the organizations receive funding and individualized training and assistance from subject matter experts to build evaluation plans focused on better understanding their program and its effectiveness. To expand reach beyond the grantees, the program created a Resource Hub, a growing collection of resources designed to make evaluation more accessible and actionable for the wider veteran-serving organization community. Since its launch in June 2024, the hub has been accessed by more than 1,600 users.

With these tools and support, the organizations can use data to tell the story of their work and how they are changing and saving the lives of veterans across the country. The program demonstrates what meaningful, sustainable suicide prevention looks like: building the capacity of organizations, supporting strategies that address root causes and making evaluation part of the everyday fabric of program work.

This program is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) via multiple financial assistance awards totaling $2,940,000 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.