Army veteran's nonprofit aids former vets facing food insecurity

On 7 acres in Brandywine, Maryland, Peter Scott, a former United States Army counterintelligence agent assigned to Special Forces, is farming to help food-insecure veterans in the D.C. metropolitan region.

"I was at a place in life where I needed to do something and I needed to feel like it was something good after my time in service," said Scott.

He returned stateside after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I separated after about 12 years of service. I thought I was fine, but a few years went by and I was not fine," Scott said. "I reached a moment with my family where it was 'go get help or get out.' I decided to go get help."

After entering an inpatient program for combat PTSD, Scott met other service members who were food insecure. This discovery, along with a newfound passion for gardening, led him to launch Fields4Valor.

Since its inception, Fields4Valor has helped feed more than 500 veterans and their families. According to the Military Family Advisory Network, 1-in-5 active-duty military and veteran families experience food insecurity. And that number is on the rise.

While picking up her weekly bag of groceries from the farm, Shara Simms, a disabled Air Force veteran, expressed her admiration for the honey that is harvested from the honeycombs Scott maintains, calling it "liquid gold."

Simms said the weekly bags afford her the opportunity to share "fresh fruit and honey that we don't necessarily get in the stores because it's extra expensive."

"We live and die on everybody's good will," said Scott. This year, he estimates approximately 300 volunteers helped on the farm – sometimes sourced from area military installations.

From the garden where rhubarb, kale, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce are grown, to the beehives where honey is extracted to fill jars and made into soaps, to the chicken coop where 120 chickens produce fresh farm eggs – everything is given to veterans.

Scott takes whatever is left over and sells it at Crossroads Community Food Market to help fund the farm.

Scott's years in combat zones left him feeling the need to seek some form of redemption.

"I've seen some combat," he said. "[I've] been asked to do things that maybe morally I don't feel good about. It's hard to conduct yourself in war."

He said he found a void that needed to be filled.

"I think something like Fields4Valor should exist as long as the need is there," he said.

For more information on Scott's mission to help food insecure veterans, please contact Fields4Valor at admin@fields4valor.org.