A ribbon cutting marked five years for My Veterans Place Savannah, but the afternoon told a bigger story about veterans, families, community and what can happen when someone decides that helping people is more than an idea.
There was a moment Friday afternoon when Dr. Faye Prescott stood surrounded by people dressed in red, a ribbon stretched across the room in front of her.
Children crowded near the front. Volunteers, veterans, family members and supporters filled in behind them. Cameras came up. People leaned closer.
It was the kind of scene normally associated with beginnings.
But this ribbon cutting wasn’t really about the beginning.
My Veterans Place Savannah had already spent five years doing the work.
The ribbon was marking what had been built.
On June 26, My Veterans Place Savannah celebrated its fifth anniversary with a gathering that felt part milestone, part family reunion and part reminder of why the organization exists in the first place.
The photographs spread across tables told some of that story before anyone stepped to a microphone. Rows of images documented years of events, people and moments. Guests stopped to look through them, finding pieces of an organization whose history has been written one veteran, one family and one act of service at a time.
Nearby, tables filled with food turned the celebration into something more familiar and relaxed. People ate. They talked. They laughed. Veterans mixed with community supporters. Red, white and blue appeared throughout the gathering, but the strongest theme of the afternoon wasn’t patriotic decoration.
It was belonging.
And for Prescott, that word matters.
A Mission That Started With a Question
Five years earlier, the world looked considerably different.
It was during COVID when Prescott began asking herself a question that would eventually change the direction of her life.
She didn’t feel like she was living her purpose.
So she prayed.
And she kept praying.
What emerged wasn’t another business idea. It was the realization that the work she wanted to spend her life doing was something she had, in many ways, already been doing.
Helping people.
The next question was who.
Children? Adults? Seniors?
Her answer eventually became obvious.
Veterans.
Prescott’s connection to military life wasn’t something she had learned from the outside. She was born into a military family, served eight years in the Navy and later married into the military.
She understood that service doesn’t affect only the person wearing the uniform.
It affects the family around them.
That perspective became part of the foundation of My Veterans Place Savannah, a nonprofit created to serve active-duty service members, veterans and military families through resources that include housing assistance, financial support, transportation help, mental-health resources and community programs.
Five years later, Prescott could stand at the center of a crowded celebration and physically see what once existed only as a vision.
But she is also quick to point out that the need remains.
What Success Looks Like When the Numbers Have Names
Nonprofits often measure impact in statistics.
My Veterans Place has plenty of them.
Its five-year report says the organization raised $172,000 in donations between 2021 and 2025, growing from $25,000 during its first year to $49,500 in 2025. The report also describes a network that has served thousands of veterans and military families through community events, support services, financial assistance and other programs.
During Friday’s celebration, another number appeared in a very visible way.
$20,000.
Prescott stood beside a representative of the VyStar Foundation holding an oversized check for a $20,000 military grant.
But talking with Prescott makes something clear.
The numbers aren’t really what she remembers.
She remembers faces.
She remembers what happens when someone who has been struggling finally receives something that restores a little stability.
“The good part is being able to see the smile on somebody’s face when we’re able to gift them a car,” she said.
Then she described an even simpler picture.
Knowing someone can turn their lights on.
Knowing they can get a drink of water.
Knowing they can remain in their home.
“That’s what brings joy to me.”
She talked about two veterans who went through the organization’s homebuyer program, received financial services and were connected with real estate professionals.
Eventually, both became homeowners.
“They got a new lease on life,” Prescott said.
That’s the difference between counting services and understanding impact.
A utility payment isn’t simply a payment when it keeps someone’s lights on.
Transportation isn’t simply transportation when it helps someone get to work or an appointment.
Housing isn’t simply an address when someone previously didn’t know where they would sleep.
And a veteran becoming a homeowner isn’t simply another successful program outcome.
It’s a person beginning another chapter.
The Stories Behind Five Years
Perhaps the most revealing moments Friday weren’t the polished ones.
They came when people began talking about Prescott and the organization from their own experiences.
One supporter remembered meeting My Veterans Place roughly four years earlier at an event benefiting homeless female veterans. She recalled Prescott showing up with a small table, long before anyone knew exactly what the organization might become.
There were plenty of veteran organizations, she told the crowd.
But My Veterans Place was different.
“This is one that walks the walk and talks the talk.”
That sentence may have captured the afternoon better than any statistic could.
Another speaker talked about Prescott finding her purpose and what those closest to her could see once she did.
“You can see it in her face, you can hear it in her speech,” he said.
More importantly, he said, you could see it in her heart.
Then a veteran stepped forward.
His story moved the conversation away from organizational milestones and directly toward the people those milestones are supposed to represent.
He spoke about experiencing homelessness and living in a tiny-house community alongside other homeless veterans. He talked about continuing to push forward and eventually moving into a one-bedroom home.
His advice was uncomplicated.
“Just keep your head up.”
He had done exactly that.
Now he was standing at a fifth-anniversary celebration telling others about it.
More Than a Name
One of the interesting things about My Veterans Place is the word My.
It could easily sound like nothing more than part of an organization’s name.
Prescott sees something else in it.
Ownership.
Belonging.
Connection.
The idea is that veterans and military families shouldn’t feel as though they are entering somebody else’s organization and asking permission to belong.
This is their place.
That philosophy was visible throughout Friday’s gathering.
Families were there.
Children were there.
Veterans were there.
Community members who had never served were there.
Longtime supporters mingled with people whose connection to the organization was newer. People gathered around food. Others studied photographs from previous years. Conversations continued long after formal remarks began.
At one point, Prescott recognized Bernice Loman, who has helped tell the organization’s story through media, marketing and its digital presence. Prescott spoke not simply about professional work, but about friendship, loyalty and someone who had become part of the larger My Veterans Place family.
Those moments mattered because they revealed something numbers can’t easily measure.
Organizations may be incorporated on paper.
Communities aren’t.
Communities are built through relationships.
Bridging Two Savannahs
Prescott also believes there is unfinished work beyond the individual services My Veterans Place provides.
Savannah is surrounded by a substantial military presence, yet she sees a disconnect between the military community and the broader civilian community.
“You would not know that Savannah has the two largest military bases in the state of Georgia,” she said while discussing that divide.
For Prescott, closing that distance matters.
She also pushes back against stereotypes surrounding veterans, particularly the idea that veterans who need assistance are simply looking for handouts.
The reality visible through the work of organizations like My Veterans Place is much more complicated.
People leave military service and encounter housing problems, transportation challenges, financial emergencies, mental-health needs and the difficult transition into civilian life.
Sometimes the answer is direct assistance.
Sometimes it is a referral.
Sometimes it is simply knowing where to turn.
Prescott said My Veterans Place receives inquiries from beyond the Savannah area and referrals from larger organizations. Even when her organization cannot provide the needed service directly, she doesn’t want the conversation to end there.
“We don’t say no to anybody,” she said. “We always connect them to the resources.”
That may be one of the most important descriptions of what My Veterans Place has become.
Not necessarily the answer to every problem.
But a place determined to help someone find the next door.
One Veteran at a Time
The official motto is simple:
Making a Difference One Veteran at a Time.
After five years, that philosophy has become visible in dozens of different forms.
A vehicle.
A utility bill.
A housing connection.
A referral.
A community event.
A conversation.
A table filled with food.
A room where somebody knows your name.
And sometimes, a person willing to answer the phone and say, “Let me see how we can help.”
Near the conclusion of Friday’s celebration, a prayer was offered for Prescott and the road ahead.
The prayer didn’t focus only on what had already happened.
It asked for “the strength, the courage, and the willpower to drive on.”
That felt appropriate.
Because five years was the reason everyone had gathered.
It wasn’t the finish line.
The ribbon eventually came down. Photographs were taken. People ate and talked. The oversized check was held for cameras. Families and supporters crowded together for group pictures.
And Prescott was surrounded by the very thing she had prayed about five years earlier.
Purpose.
Only now, it had faces.
The Buzz Take
A ribbon cutting usually celebrates something new.
This one celebrated something that stayed.
Five years of showing up when veterans needed housing, transportation, financial help, resources, encouragement or simply somebody willing to help them figure out what came next.
That’s what made Friday’s gathering feel bigger than an anniversary.
The photographs on those tables weren’t decorations. They were evidence of time invested in people.
And perhaps that is the real story of My Veterans Place Savannah.
Not that one organization has every answer.
But that for five years, when someone needed a place to begin looking for one, there were people willing to say:
You have a place here.
Photos by Bernice Loman of Loman Creative Services
I am Chris Benton Co-Founder of The Coastal Buzz, Co-Host of The Chris & Sandy Show & Publisher of The Customized Ride.