Shelter To Soldier
Earlier this year, our Dark Arts Factory Team came together with some of our team riders and ambassadors (Kyle Knox, Johnny Noris and Benji Weatherly), for an afternoon of golf and good times, to help benefit local Oceanside, CA non-profit, Shelter to Soldier. Shelter to Soldier holds an annual golf tournament to raise awareness and funding for their noble cause. Dark Arts couldn't have been more honored and excited to help support this organization and all the recipients of their incredible work.
Shelter to Soldier™ is a CA 501c3 nonprofit organization that adopts dogs from local shelters and trains them to become psychiatric service dogs for post-9/11 combat veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and/or other injuries associated with traumatic service experiences. Every day, 20 US veterans and 1 active duty service member are lost to suicide. That’s an average of one life lost every 69 minutes. The suicide rate among the nation’s military personnel has spiked this year, eclipsing the number of troops dying in battle and on pace to set a record annual high since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more than a decade ago. PTSD is a major problem for our men and women in uniform, and its effects last far and beyond the battlefield.
Every year, our nation sees approximately 7.6 million animals enter shelters. More than half of those animals are dogs, at 3.9 million every year. This year alone, 1.2 million dogs will be euthanized due to space, behavioral problems, or medical complications.
Shelter Soldier has taken on this very critical issue themselves and it was such an honor to support their noble work.
As a company, we are so grateful for the opportunity to be able to manufacture freely here in the United States and will collectively, always, have nothing but major gratitude to the brave men and women that have served and fought defending freedom. Many, giving an ultimate sacrifice of body or mental health, in service to our country and to their families, is not to be forsaken. At Darks Arts, the freedoms given to us, that were fought for, we take seriously and that is another reason why we strive to keep our production here in the United States. Made in America.
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Here are some photos from the Shelter to Soldier event. Enjoy!
