It is made up of a team of dedicated Northport community members focused on "honoring and enabling” individuals in the tristate area who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), by raising funds and awareness and enlisting the community’s support for organizations that advance wounded warriors and other veterans in need, past their visible and invisible injurie
s. The Cow Harbor Warrior Weekend was created as a way to raise funds and awareness for the veterans and veterans’ organizations we support, by inviting wounded warriors/veterans in need, their families and our community members to a weekend of recreation, celebration and appreciation. Since its inception in 2012, the Cow Harbor Warrior organization has donated over $235,000 to veteran organizations that help advance the wellbeing of injured veterans or veterans in need including: The Wounded Warriors Project, the Semper Fi Fund, Disabled American Veterans Transportation Network (DAV TN), Paws of War, the Northport VA Medical Center and others. For clarification purposes, Cow Harbor Warriors is not, nor has it ever been, a subsidiary, division or other corporate form of the Wounded Warrior Project("WWP"). In 2012, as a brand new organization, CHW teamed up with the much more experienced WWP for our first Cow Harbor Warrior Weekend. We hosted 24 service members, that WWP helped identify, for a weekend of appreciation, recreation and celebration. Our 2012 goal was just to be able to fund that first Warrior Weekend. However, we were more successful than we ever imagined and were able to donate the additional contributions we raised to the Wounded Warrior Project in support of the many programs they offer to wounded OIF/OEF veterans and their families. Following that first year we decided to partner with more local veteran organizations, such as the Semper Fi Fund, Northport VA Medical Center, Paws of War and others that can directly impact the wellbeing and advancement of tristate wounded veterans and veterans in need.