HOUSTON (KIAH) — Veterans and first responders as part of the nonprofit, The Skeleton Crew Adventures, are using adventure therapy through sailing to help those living with PTSD.
The group will take on the 2023 Ocean Globe Race — the largest ocean sailing race of our generation. The race is an eight-month adventure on the water. This is the 50th anniversary of the every 4-year race. The crew operates out of Kemah, Texas and provides sail training opportunities and 3-4 day offshore sailing missions across the Texas coast. The adventure will take place solely on production sailboats and navigation will strictly be done through a sextant and the stars with no GPS allowed.
What are the benefits of adventure therapy:
According to an article from Very Well Mind, adventure therapy can help:
- Reduce feelings of suicide
- Decrease feelings of depression
- Fade a sense of helplessness
- Promote feelings of self-efficacy
What is adventure therapy:
Adventure therapy uses adventure experiences by mental health professionals that are usually in natural settings. These adventures are meant to help engage individuals, families and groups on physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels.
Skeleton Crew Adventures founder and veteran of the U.S Navy, Taylor Grieger said, “what we do as a nonprofit is raise awareness for and bring veterans out to participate in adventure therapy and raise awareness for veterans who commit suicides here. There are countries doing it way better than we are specifically the UK’s program of adventure therapy. They bring active duty men and women, hiking, sailing, camping while they’re still in to kinda set the reset button and take of themselves. We don’t do anything like that in the states, so we really focus on preventing suicides instead of putting on a bandaid and reacting after the fact.”
How to donate:
Skeleton Crew Adventures is asking for donations to help them reach their goal of $50K by June 10th. To make a contribution, you can visit their website here and help make a difference in a veteran’s life.
