Pinellas nonprofit lands $750,000 VA grant for veteran suicide prevention

A Pinellas County nonprofit has received $750,000 from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to continue suicide prevention outreach for local veterans.

The grant

Vincentian CARES, formerly known as St. Vincent de Paul CARES, was among 12 organizations sharing more than $6 million in VA funding, Spectrum Bay News 9 reported. The grants are part of $111.9 million the VA awarded to 191 community organizations nationwide through the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, according to the American Legion.

The funds will become available at the start of fiscal year 2027. The Fox grant program funds nonprofits, state and local governments, federally recognized tribes and other community organizations serving veterans.

Reaching veterans outside VA care

Jason Mortham, director of health services at Vincentian CARES, told Bay News 9 the organization has helped more than 600 veterans over the five years it has held the Fox grant. The group works to identify at-risk veterans, ask whether they are thinking about suicide and create plans addressing mental health, social support and financial stability.

Mortham said 62% of veterans who die by suicide are not in contact with the VA in the year before their death.

Separately, the VA reported that 61% of veterans who died by suicide in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, were not receiving VA health care in their final year of life.

Mortham said the new $750,000 award will allow Vincentian CARES to maintain its veteran support services.

A veteran's experience

Air Force veteran Jason Turner, owner of Tidy Turtles Cleaning Company, said Vincentian CARES helped him through a stretch when he was laid off from Microsoft, lost his father and faced the stress of launching a business.

"I would have given up on my business, honestly," Turner told Bay News 9. "I'm a fighter, but these guys gave me the tools and the resources so that way I could mentally be the leader that my company needed me to be."

Turner said his three years in the Air Force shaped his approach to running a company, but the personal losses piled up. He credited his Vincentian CARES case manager with keeping his business on track.