A Marine veteran, a trailer, and a promise that no one fights the return home alone. This is how Every Third Saturday began — and where it's going.
Founder Tom McKenna, a Marine Corps veteran who had fought his own battles with addiction and PTSD, drove past a homeless veteran at an Arden Hills intersection — and turned around.
He took the man to a store and bought him the simplest things he needed most: socks and underwear. That single act turned into monthly loops around the city, ten backpacks at a time, filled with the essentials veterans on the street couldn't count on.
Soon it was a trailer full of clothing, boots, and hygiene supplies, handed out in the Minneapolis VA parking lot on the third Saturday of every month. The gatherings became a community. The community became a movement. The name never changed.
Doctors repair the body. Psychologists tend the mind. ETS exists for the wounds to the soul — and the community that heals them. Everything we do is built around three things every veteran deserves.
The unit doesn't have to end at discharge. We rebuild the brotherhood and sisterhood that carried veterans through service.
A reason to get up, a place to contribute, and the dignity of being needed again. Purpose is the difference between surviving and living.
We believe in post-traumatic growth — that the hardest chapters can become the foundation for the strongest version of yourself.
Two blocks from the Minneapolis VA, the Veterans Resource & Empowerment Center (the VREC) is where the mission lives every day of the week — not just the third Saturday.
Under one roof: a free supply store stocked like a real shop, a fitness center, Rick's Coffee Bar, classrooms and group spaces, and the paid internship program. It's a place to grab what you need, work out, take a class, get a coffee, and run into people who understand.
No single grant, no overnight launch. Just a refusal to stop showing up — on the third Saturday, and every day since.
Amos Ferrier, our Internship Director and a decorated Army medic who served two tours in Afghanistan, was a bright light to everyone he met. He was lost to us far too soon.
Amos leaves behind two sons, Liam and Elliot. We're raising funds for their education — and the future their father worked so hard to secure for them.
The mission doesn't end at discharge. Your support keeps the doors open, the shelves stocked, and a community at every veteran's back.