Honoring service · Healing together
From surviving to thriving, together.
When a combat wounded veteran comes home, the hardest battle is often the one that begins after. Alive Day Foundation walks beside warriors and the families who love them, not just through the crisis, but for the rest of their lives.
Our mission
No warrior, and no family, should heal alone.
Alive Day Foundation supports combat wounded veterans and their families in rebuilding identity, restoring hope, and rediscovering lives of purpose, leadership, and belonging.
We are not a single program or a one time event. We are building a family centered restoration ecosystem: cohort based intensives that bring veterans and families through the journey together, then a lifelong alumni community that keeps them connected long after.
See how it worksWhat is the Alive Day Foundation?
Alive Day Foundation is a veteran founded nonprofit, based in Northwest Arkansas and serving the nation, that helps combat wounded veterans and their families heal, reconnect, and rediscover purpose through restoration intensives and a lifelong alumni community.
501c3 status in progress, but sprinting
What restoration looks like
Healing the whole circle
A wound never lands on one person alone. It reaches the spouse, the children, and the community. So restoration has to reach all of them too.
The Veteran
- Healing
- Purpose
- Leadership
The Family
- Connection
- Stability
- Belonging
The Community
- Resilience
- Hope
- Impact
An alive day is the anniversary of the day a warrior should not have survived, and did.
The day the fight to live was wonWhy we are called this
We exist for everything that comes after.
In the veteran community, an alive day marks the anniversary of a near fatal combat wound. It is a day heavy with gratitude and grief at once: thankful to be here, carrying those who are not.
Surviving is the beginning. What follows can be years of rebuilding a body, a marriage, an identity, and a reason to get up in the morning. That long road is exactly where Alive Day Foundation lives, beside the warrior and the family, for as long as it takes.
A model built to last
Not a handout. A foundation.
The first two years fund pilot programs, outcome validation, and the infrastructure to serve families safely and well, so we can prove the model works and then scale it nationwide.
Our programs
Three intensives. One journey.
Veterans and families move through cohort based intensives together, then stay connected for life.
Community
Rebuilding connection and belonging. No one walks back into life alone.
Resilience
Practical, evidence informed skills for mental, physical, and relational health.
Purpose
Rediscovering identity, leadership, and a renewed sense of mission after service.
Built by those who have lived it
This is personal before it is a mission.
Alive Day Foundation was founded by Rick Willis, a retired Air Force civil engineer and a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient, and his wife Lisa Willis, an Air Force veteran and former chaplain assistant. Both are one hundred percent disabled veterans.
They have walked the road from surviving to thriving inside their own family. Now they are building the community they wished had been waiting for them, so the next warrior and the next family do not have to walk it alone.
Read our storyEvery gift. Every size. Every impact.
Your gift does more than fund programs.
Whether you give ten dollars or ten thousand, you become part of a movement to heal, restore, and reconnect veterans and families for a lifetime.
Provides hope and support
Strengthens families
Funds essential resources
Transforms lives
Together, we can do more. Together, we can heal more.
Join us in building a lifelong community where combat wounded veterans and their families can heal, reconnect, and rediscover purpose.