Operation Lifeline Inc.

10/30/2026

Operation Lifeline is October’s Positively JAX award recipient! 🎉

Thank you to WJXT4 The Local Station / News4JAX and The Morning Show for recognizing our work and welcoming our Executive Director, Erick Saks, on air this morning to accept the award on behalf of Operation Lifeline Inc.!

The video also takes you inside Spring Street Sanctuary in Green Cove Springs and introduces you to one of the veterans who calls it home. Seeing this house become a place of stability, support and community is why we do this work.

None of it would be possible without our friends, sponsors and community partners. A heartfelt thank-you to:

• The Home Depot Foundation
• VyStar Foundation
• The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida
• Clay County Housing Finance Authority
• Operation Barnabas Inc.
• LP Building Solutions for Homeowners
• Full Strength LLC
• Sherwin-Williams
• Pulte Homes and its volunteers
• Interiors Revitalized
• Operation Warrior Resolution
• NEFBA’s Apprenticeship Program, its instructors and students

A special thank-you to Lisa Shedd Daniels, who brought friends, family and community members together to help furnish the house and make it feel like home.

To every donor, volunteer and supporter who has given money, materials, time or a helping hand: you helped make the home you see in this video possible. We’re proud to share this recognition with you!

Watch the segment below! 💙

A veteran who was nearly homeless now has a place to call home, and...

10/27/2026

🏠🔨 It’s the final week of our Veteran Futures Academy!

Our students are putting their training into action by building a house mock-up. This hands-on project brings together the skills they’ve learned and shows how the elements of a home come together on a smaller scale.

We’re proud of the hard work and progress they’ve made throughout the program. Let’s finish strong! 👏

10/21/2026

🎥 A look behind the scenes with News4JAX!

Monday, we welcomed WJXT4 The Local Station / News4JAX to Spring Street Sanctuary to help tell the Operation Lifeline Inc. story. We’re honored to have been selected as October’s Positively JAX award recipient!

This recognition reflects the work of our team, volunteers, partners, and supporters who help us create housing opportunities for veterans and pathways into careers in the skilled trades.

Our story will air Friday, October 30, on News4JAX’s The Morning Show, alongside a live award presentation with our Executive Director, Erick Saks.

Thank you to News4JAX for shining a light on this work and to everyone helping us move it forward. We’ll share more details as the broadcast approaches!

10/14/2026

Remember sitting in math class thinking, “When am I EVER going to use the Pythagorean theorem in real life?”

Well … turns out the answer is when you’re building real things!

Today, our students are putting some of that high school math to work as they learn how to lay out, square up, and pour a concrete slab.

Turns out, that whole a² + b² = c² thing actually matters when you need perfectly square corners. And the good old 3-4-5 method? That’s Pythagoras at work on a construction site.

At Operation Lifeline Inc., we’re not just teaching construction skills. We’re connecting classroom knowledge to hands-on experience, building confidence, and preparing people for careers in the skilled trades.

Who knew geometry could lead to a concrete career?

10/09/2026

One week down, three to go! 🔨💪

Our Veteran Futures Academy participants have officially wrapped up their first week of training with Operation Lifeline Inc.!
This first week was all about getting jobsite ready! Our participants have been busy learning the fundamentals of construction and building the skills needed to work safely and confidently on a jobsite:

🔹 NCCER Basic Safety training
🔹 OSHA-10 Construction training
🔹 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and hands-on practice
🔹 Jobsite hazard recognition and safety procedures
🔹 Basic construction skills and measurements

It's been a great first week of learning, asking questions, and building a strong foundation for the weeks ahead.

A special thank you to Operation Warrior Resolution (OWR), including Kendra Simpkins Walsh and the entire OWR team, for their partnership and support! We're also incredibly grateful to the State of Florida for providing dedicated funding to support veteran workforce training and help make opportunities like this possible.

These partnerships are helping us do more than teach construction skills. They're helping veterans build confidence, rediscover purpose, develop valuable skills, and create new opportunities for their futures.

We're excited to see our participants continue developing their skills and gaining more hands-on experience over the next three weeks!

Great job, everyone! 👏

09/29/2026

Operation Lifeline is at Our Veterans Matter in Jacksonville today! 🇺🇸

We’re proud to be part of an event bringing together organizations, resources, and people committed to supporting Veterans across Northeast Florida.

For us, being here is about more than sharing information about Veteran Futures Academy. It’s about meeting Veterans where they are, listening to what they need, building relationships with other organizations, and making sure more Veterans know about the opportunities and resources available to them.

We’re grateful to be part of a community that continues to show up for those who served.

Veterans. Stronger Communities. Families. 🙌🏼

09/23/2026

FREE COMMUNITY LAND TRUST CERTIFICATION TRAINING | ENROLL BY OCTOBER 1 🙌🏼

Interested in helping shape the Northeast Florida Community Land Trust? We have grant-funded seats available at no cost to participants for a training that normally costs $777.

Through funding from The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, Operation Lifeline Inc. is working with the Florida Housing Coalition and its Florida Community Land Trust Institute to build a network of trained partners who can help develop a regional approach to permanently affordable homeownership.

The Fall 2026 Basic Individual Training (BIT) is an 8-week course in Community Land Trust best practices. It includes:

- Foundational CLT and shared-equity knowledge
- Self-paced learning and curated resources
- Live virtual instruction and peer discussion
- Practical application
- Individual Certification upon successful completion

The course is open to all sectors, and we especially want to hear from local government, nonprofits, housing organizations, lenders, real estate professionals, attorneys, and other community partners across Northeast Florida.

Course begins: October 1
Live sessions: Thursdays, 1:00–2:30 p.m.
Course completion: November 23
Normal cost: $777
Cost through our initiative: $0

Interested in a funded seat? Contact Operation Lifeline at [email protected] as soon as possible.
Enrollment closes October 1.

09/19/2026

We are proud to see Operation Lifeline Inc.’s own David Black featured on the Business Success Tips podcast.

In this episode, David discusses how employers can build stronger teams by hiring veterans without creating additional staffing headaches. Veterans bring leadership, accountability, adaptability and a mission-focused approach to the workplace. The key is helping employers recognize those strengths and connect veterans with the right opportunities.

That is an important part of our work at Operation Lifeline. We are not only preparing veterans for careers in construction. We are also helping employers understand the value veterans can bring to their organizations.

Take a few minutes to hear David’s perspective:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ySEAWVcFMtQQzzu5COPu9

Business Success Tips · Episode

06/03/2026

A beautiful example of community coming together!

We are grateful to the Northeast Florida Builders Association Apprenticeship Program for donating a handcrafted convertible bench/table to our Spring Street veteran supportive housing home in Green Cove Springs.

This piece was built by NEFBA Level One carpentry apprentices as part of their hands-on training. Even better, they included sealant and brushes so our residents can add the finishing touches themselves.

The bench will have a special place at the Spring Street Sanctuary, Clay County’s first supportive housing home for veterans, where it will help create a welcoming shared space for the men who live there.

Thank you to Rachael Burke and Charlie Libretto from NEFBA for coordinating this donation and for continuing to show what happens when workforce development and community service come together.

This is exactly the kind of partnership that makes our community stronger.