This article is how US Military, Veterans and their spouses can earn extra money, day by day, by helping local residents with chores around their homes, yards, ranches, and businesses. The jobs posted are for help with general labor, cleaning, painting, yardwork, house cleaning, home care, car repair, and a myriad of other kinds of jobs. Community residents post them every day. They post how much they can afford for the work. Local military veterans and their spouses just respond to the post, do the work, and get paid directly. Some veterans make a full time living doing this. Some start new businesses. Most use it as needed, month by month. – It is a wonderful way for a community to promote patriotism and connect with their military and veteran populace. And it is an especially effective way to thank them!
HirePatriots.com was started when a US Marine knocked on my door, who had just returned from 8 months in Iraq, in 2004. “Hello, sir. I am wondering if there are any chores you have that I can help you with to earn some money.” He said.
He was still in his fatigues. Only minutes before, he had returned home to find his wife and 2 small children living with no utilities. It had been like that for weeks before his return. His wife had been laid off from her hospital job after his deployment. She did not want to worry her husband, so she sold the family car, reduced expenses to bare minimum, and hung on until he returned home.
When we heard his reason for asking for work, my wife and I gathered all the cash we had and tried to give it to him. But he replied, “No, sir. I am a US Marine. I do not take handouts. Is there any work I can do to earn it?”
So, we gave him some chores to do. He cleaned our garage and fixed a broken chair. Then he took the money. When he did, I asked him, “Are there other Marines you know who are also in a tight spot financially? I asked.
“Just everyone I know.” He answered.
I shook his hand and looked him in the eyes. “Well, I promise you that I will do something about that,” I said spontaneously. I had no idea what I was going to do to help our local Marines make extra money to pay their bills and support their families. I just felt so badly about this Marine and others like him that I had to something.
The first edition of Hire Patriots was HireMarines.com for the US Marines stationed in San Diego, CA, at Camp Pendleton and Miramar Air Bases. The website began as a simple, free job board for local residents to use. Homeowners were asked to look around their homes and yards and to find some chores that needed doing, and then to post those jobs on HireMarines.com. Patriotism was soaring and our bases were full. We walked the streets and gave a card about finding daily jobs on our website to every Marine we saw. And with the help of the Oceanside Chamber President, we were able to get a US Marine General’s permission to put up posters and flyers on the bases. In our first month, more than 800 jobs were posted. All of them taken by local active duty US Marines. Read what the residents and Marines had to say about that experience HERE.
One Day I got a call from the office of the Admiral of the Navy, Len Herring. He asked if his Sailors could also take jobs from our site. I answered, “Yes, sir!” Then I was encouraged to change the name of our site so as to let his sailors know. That is when I opened our job boards up to every branch of the US Military, and changed the website to HirePatriots.com.
All the local TV, radio and News stations wanted to do interviews with us and those who were posting and taking jobs. It was always a great, uplifting, and patriotic story! They wanted us to bring guests on regularly, for the wonderful human-interest stories; and they still do, fifteen years later. See some interviews HERE. – FOX National Business News, and NBC Nightly News had us on TV to be interviewed. And PEOPLE Magazine published an article about our unique jobs program. Our website ranking soared to the top 20K in America when they did.
Because of us becoming such a media sensation, I wrote a book, The Patriotic Business Plan for veteran owned and military friendly businessowners. It is a plan that encourages them to get a HirePatriots.com website and job board for their community. That way, they could get continuous free media, which would draw more and more people to their company website to post jobs for their local US military and veterans. Their company website would have an interactive, social cause, that helps local residents, veterans and their families every day of the year! Plus, they would be the recipients of very powerful, P.R., day after day.
With so many transitioning US Military and veterans coming to our site, I leased a top-of-the-line fulltime job board. Verizon contacted Hire Patriots. They needed hundreds of linemen across the country. Within a month, they filled every job. — For companies that post on our Careers site, I put up their banner; then, I post a blog about their jobs on all the major networks.
In San Diego, Hire Patriots’ has employed over 200,000 military veterans and spouses from our Day job board. These jobs have even saved lives: Read about this sailor and his son with Leukemia: People magazine article. They rescue military families from financial difficulties. And those who post these jobs are delighted to hire these veterans. Senior citizens, especially older veterans, love having these young military men and women over to help.
These jobs also save marriages. Typically, a base will run at about a 70% divorce rate for E-1 (Private) to E-5 (Sergeant). But during war time deployments it goes to 90%! So, as often as we are able to collect enough donations, we host a 3-day Military Marriage Retreat, all expenses paid, at a resort on the beach in Oceanside for them. Local veteran groups attend, and older married couple share. A biblically based marital program is taught. We have fun contests, go on excursions; and, we dine at the local harbor restaurants together in the evenings. Also, we take a beautiful picture of each couple beneath a flowered bower, with the blue Pacific behind them. This is put into a frame for them to take home and hang. On the back of the frame, are the contacts to our marriage counselors who are available 24/7/365, if needed.
HirePatriots is now a program of the award-winning US Veteran charity, Patriotic Hearts. If you would like to begin a chapter in your community, we will be enthusiastic about assisting you. All of us are volunteers.
Mark Baird/ [email protected]/ 760-847-2561
