Husch Blackwell’s Communities for Change initiative “made it easy and was very well organized for us,” according to Michael Heilmann, leader of a group of Wisconsin veterans looking to serve hundreds of current and former military servicemen and women. Heilmann approached Communities for Change to formally incorporate a veteran-led effort that began 11 years ago.
Back in 2013, Heilmann and a small group began meeting at a local Wisconsin restaurant for coffee and breakfast. At the time, they were just a handful of vets getting together to share war stories and talk about grandchildren. Since then, this group has grown to more than 700 vet members, dozens of whom still meet once a week, eat, and even take breakfast and coffee to those who cannot attend due to ill health.
As word spread about the mission of the group and their goals of attending to veterans, donations began to pour in. The group’s founders began thinking of ways to capitalize on the funding and to incentive donors to give more. Firm attorneys Reagan Hovey, Hilary Bricken, and Jack Enea answered the call to help the group formally incorporate in the state of Wisconsin and seek 501c3 tax exemption status to encourage those able to make donations to assist. With the work recently concluded, the newly-formed “Veterans Weekly Cup-of-Coffee, Inc.” is thankful.
“We are just so grateful to Husch, and we hope our new incorporation status helps us help even more of the men and women who have come home. It’s just terrific that this firm saw fit to include us in this program.”