EDITOR’S NOTE — Veteran Voices is an annual week-long series introducing WYDaily readers to some of our local veterans. Each story represents a different person in the Historic Triangle communities and shares their stories of service.
WILLIAMSBURG — Scott Sprowl originally entered the Coast Guard as a way to pay for college.
Only planning to stay in the service for four years, Sprowl was volunteering as a firefighter before joining and wanted to earn his degree in fire science. Now retired after 24 years of Coast Guard service as a cook, Sprowl has dedicated his life to his nonprofit, Claus Cares.
While he mostly operates as Santa for local events and appearances, Sprowl saw the need to help veterans after dealing with a tough loss of one of his close Coast Guard friends.
“Last October, I had a former shipmate commit suicide. All of us shipmates left behind started doing checks on each other through Facebook. That was when I just popped in with the idea of let’s do this for real,” Sprowl explained.
Through local get-togethers at breweries, Sprowl organizes events for veterans to meet other veterans to talk about anything that might be on their mind. Sometimes, Sprowl said, it’s just getting together to talk about nothing serious, but mainly just to have someone to talk to.
“A lot of service members, specifically males, are taught to internalize. You are told, ‘you are a man, no emotion, suck it up.’ It’s an issue and a huge problem nationwide. With Operation Buddy Check, you don’t have to lie to us because we’re going through it, too. Unless something crazy happens, we’re not reporting you, we’re not sending you anywhere, we’re not professionals, we’re just here to hang out with you and let you know that you’re not alone,” Sprowl said.
Sprowl has planned a few get-togethers at locations in Norfolk and Suffolk, but would ultimately love to bring the program to this side of the water. The group will take the months of November and December off for the holiday season, but plans meetups again starting in January.
In addition to expanding to the Peninsula, Sprowl also hopes to grow the program so that he can eventually offer camping and fishing trips to help those struggling with PTSD. He will also ask members of the group for advice on the activities that they want to partake in and will do his best to make those happen.
Overall, he just wants to help those veterans who are struggling.
“If we help just one, that’s what it’s all about. We hope it’s more, and we hope we can make an actual change. Time will tell, but if we save just one, that’s enough for us,” Sprowl said.
For more information on Operation Buddy Check, visit clauscares.org.