The line of trucks arrived early on a Saturday morning.

Todd Hahn, a U.S. Navy veteran who owns a construction company in Riverside, looked out from the unfinished English River Outfitters lodge located adjacent to Sockum Ridge County Park south of Washington.

“They just kept coming. Oh, my gosh,” Hahn said.

Hahn, a newly appointed vice president and member of the Healing at English River Outfitters (HERO) group that serves veterans, had coordinated a workday at the lodge. The building, which is under construction, is situated just north of 305th Street in southern Washington County. His son, who also works in construction, figured it would be him, his dad and maybe a handful of others.

Instead, the place filled up with 70 contractors from a variety of eastern Iowa locations arriving at the site at 8 in the morning in about 50 trucks.

The crowd was so big that Ed Weeks, Commander of VFW Post 3949 and a resident of Washington, said he ran out of the bratwursts he was cooking on a grill for the workers.

“It really warmed my heart that workday when everybody showed up. It was just amazing,” Hahn said.

“That particular day, when they showed up, it felt like almost a rebirth,” said Rod Courtney, HERO Board Director. “It just came to life.”

All that work on October 23 and another smaller workday on November 6 has resulted in a three-story jewel rising as the centerpiece building on a property of about 37 acres that will provide rooms and meeting spaces, a kitchen and a wrap-around deck for veterans in need of a weekend retreat that promotes therapeutic and emotional healing.

A back deck, when finished, will feature a ramp for veterans in wheelchairs.HERO’s mission is to “restore our veterans’ strength and independence by providing a safe outdoor experience that promotes healing and closure, as well as family reintegration.”

“HERO is doing more right now than building a lodge, although this is crucial,” said Courtney, who is a veteran and a probation officer. “HERO’s mission is to get the lodge up. What it’s doing is building community. And what a better time as we kind of start working our way out of Covid, with all of the things that are going on in the world? Here’s this community.”

The project is the brainchild of Chuck Geertz, a 23-year military veteran with the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army and Iowa Army National Guard. A native of Muscatine, and member of the VFW and American Legion, Geertz passed away in 2019, which delayed the completion of the HERO facility in Washington County.

“Without his leadership, it certainly went downhill,” said Steve Miller, a quartermaster with the VFW.

HERO hosted just six veterans in 2008 when the property didn’t have a building. Instead, weekend retreats operated out of a camper. Since then, more than 400 veterans and families have been served.

And now, excitement is soaring for the creation of a building that organizers hope will have a grand opening around Fourth of July festivities. Those working on the project, and members of the HERO board, have heard from veterans across the US.

“My goal is to have it done before the Fourth of July so that we can have maybe kind of a Fourth of July grand opening,” Hahn said.

The project has attracted the attention of contractors and service organizations. VFW Post 3949, which is located in Iowa City, is using funds from a $25,000 donation by Gary Werle, who owns a construction company in Solon, to help finance the project. Werle was among those involved in the workday.

“He’s taken a liking to it,” Weeks said.

Also involved in the project is Riverside’s VFW Post 6414.

Among the companies donating building materials are Suburban Lumber of Cedar Rapids, Beisser Lumber of Coralville and Engineered Building Design of Washington. Aero Rental of Iowa City provided construction lifts. Mike Hodge, who owns a construction company in Iowa City, was one of the contractors, along with a number of others including Riverside’s Todd Hahn Construction.

4-M Plumbing & Heating of Washington has offered to do the plumbing at cost.

“Number of supplies, number of vendors, it was amazing,” Hahn said. “Everybody that I talked to, everybody was on board. They think it’s a great cause, that HERO’s doing, and they wanted to be part of it.”

Other sponsors and contributors include the Marine Corps League, Second Brigade MC, Teufelhund Veterans Group, Rogers Construction, Coralville Scheels, Baxa’s Sutliff Store & Tavern in Lisbon, and Gun Dog Supply.

The work party on October 23 even attracted those who were not contractors.

“We had probably another 20 to 30, I’m guessing, just volunteers, men and women, just saying, ‘Tell us what to do.’ It was an amazing workday,” Hahn said.

“Todd Hahn ran that so well,” Courtney said. “All these different projects going all at the same time and everybody was down there and they had a good time. Todd said they were having fun. They felt good about what they were doing.”

A smaller workday was held November 6 as work finished up on the exterior portions of the building. With much of the outside done, Hahn said, electrical and plumbing contractors will be able to work on the inside over the winter.

But beyond all the construction and the trucks and the hammers and nails, the driving force of the project has not been forgotten.

“We feel that there’s healing in the outdoors. We do that by way of hunting and fishing. Up around there, there’s a lot of trails to walk,” Courtney said. “When veterans come back from deployment and they have the stress, the reintegration in trying to find that place that they can rejuvenate and restore themselves. It’s designed to be that.”

As he finished up a few things this past Saturday at the lodge, Hahn thought about that mission.

“I love the cause,” he said. “I love what they’re doing.”

To learn more of English River Outfitters and HERO, or donate, go to:

Englishriveroutfitters.org

Fundraiser by Rod Courtney : Let’s finish this lodge for our Veterans! (gofundme.com)