Soldiers Home Gives Thanks for $85,000 Chapel Grant
Bradley Foundation Award Aids Restoration of Veterans' 1889 Chapel

MILWAUKEE - The Soldiers Home Foundation, Inc., and the veteran history it serves, enjoy an added blessing this Thanksgiving - an $85,000 grant from The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee. The private, Milwaukee-based, grantmaking institution was established in 1985 to support programs and studies to improve the life of the community through increasing cultural and educational opportunities, economic development, and effective and human social and health services.

This grant is a significant step in the Soldiers Home Foundation's $2.5 million campaign to restore and reopen the 1889 Home Chapel, a place of religious and patriotic prayer, service, celebration, and solace for veterans, their families and the community for over 110 years.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation grant boosts the Chapel effort in several ways, says Soldiers Home Foundation President Kristin Gilpatrick.

"This generous gift brings added publicity to our cause exactly at the moment we are taking the first step to reopening this historic Chapel. Combined with donations and pledges of our members and friends, the grant has also given us the good start we need to address the Chapel's most urgent structural concern - its roof. You can literally see the light in the Chapel, and we need to do something now to keep out the cold and wet and to preserve the structure for more complete restoration."

The VA Medical Center in Milwaukee is working with the Soldiers Home Foundation so the Foundation can complete some minimal patchwork on the roof before year-end. In 2006, the Foundation intends to restore the roof with materials and design approved by the National Register of Historic Places.

The roof is a noble beginning, and Gilpatrick is confident that community support will ensure the Soldiers Home Foundation can restore the Chapel's Queen Anne exterior and exquisite interior.

"Our Foundation, with the help of others like The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, will succeed in its mission to protect, preserve, and further the historic integrity and veteran legacy of the National Soldiers Home Historic District, and restore the literal soul of that district - the Home Chapel - for veterans, the community and generations to come."

To help restore the historic veterans' chapel, and discover more about the American treasure that is the National Soldiers Home Historic District, visit www.soldiershome.org or call (414) 383-1867.