Michelle Lang believes she’s leading the only organization whose sole focus is supporting veterans living in rural America. If anyone out there knows of another group or individual who is actively supporting rural veterans, she wants to hear from you, but she’s never found another.
“I’m from a rural community in Pennsylvania. Living at different bases, we always had access to a ton of resources,” Lang told Military.com. “It was a no-brainer where you needed to go to ask questions, but when you get back home to Small Town, USA, you don't know the first person to ask for questions or resources. You don't even know that you can ask these questions.”
Lang is the founder of Operation Honor: Rural Salute, a nonprofit with the goal of connecting rural veterans and their families or caregivers with resources they need and a community to support them.
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“We make it our mission to find the resources that can serve these small towns, no matter where they are, in a holistic way,” she said. “We have an online community that we're building so people can see who's in their area if they want to do that, or they can connect with other small-town veterans or subject-matter experts to get questions answered directly.”
OHRS connects vets with common problems in claims assistance, Department of Veterans Affairs home loans, health care, employment and mental health services, but also with legal services, fitness, financial literacy and homelessness support. The nonprofit’s “social media-esque” forum allows rural communities to share their experiences, rate the help they receive and jive over their common situations.
Every year, OHRS throws a large festival not only to celebrate and uplift rural veterans, but also to connect them to those benefits. The party is such a great time, the veterans and families who attend have no idea they’re actually at a resource fair.
“There's this mentality that going to a resource fair means you're going, because you need something and it doesn't always feel great,” Lang said. “People sometimes don't like to think that they do need anything. I mean, a resource fair isn't appealing to me. And there’s an age gap. Older veterans are the ones that are coming out to veteran events, so how do we capture that millennial group of veterans and get them to these events? And the answer is ‘fun.’”
That means the nonprofit not only brings together the resources and benefits attendees might need, but also throws a family-centered party with kids games, face painting, bounce houses and other fun activities. For the parents, they have craft vendors, live music and food trucks.
“But then hey, there's a row of local and national veteran resources there that you might not have known about,” said Lang.
Operation Honor: Rural Salute does a lot with a little. The nonprofit consists of Lang and her husband Chris, along with a board of directors -- for a total of around six people. Their 2024 festival in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, was bigger than they expected, and 2025’s is on track to be even bigger. Lang found a problem close to her heart and set out to fix it.
“I started this nonprofit because my husband had a really bad transition out of the Army,” Lang said. “We weren’t aware of the mental transition. We had everything lined up; a job, a support system and we moved back home to Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, getting mental health care was really lacking there, and finding a provider that understood a veteran perspective was really difficult.”
The result of this lack of services meant her husband really began to struggle and their marriage began to fail. While the Langs suffered, Michelle noticed her neighbor, a Vietnam veteran, was being evicted because of back taxes. He didn’t know what to do, and he had no family around. She stepped in, found housing for him as the Langs began to refocus their efforts on their relationship.
“What in the world would've happened in this small town if we didn't tap into the veteran network that we had to get help?” she asked. “We repaired our marriage and our relationship, but I started talking to other spouses, and when they moved back home, they had the same experience with their husbands really struggling with the mental transition and not finding the help they needed in these small towns. So we started to do something about it.”
Operation Honor: Rural Salute’s 2025 festival is scheduled for June 6-7 at the Fulton County Fairgrounds in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania. This year’s celebration includes a golf tournament, craft vendors, kids activities, food trucks, live music and free portrait photography for veterans.
To learn more about Operation Honor’s annual festivals, how to help America’s rural veterans or to donate or find volunteer opportunities (or learn to throw your own OHRS festival in your area), visit the Operation Honor: Rural Salute website.
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