JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 More than 100 organizations gathered at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on Tuesday to connect local veterans with lifesaving resources, ranging from mental health care to education benefits and employment assistance.<\/p>\n
The North Florida and South Georgia Veterans Health System hosted the \u201cOur Veterans Matter\u201d Fair, an event designed to provide suicide prevention services along with benefits and entitlements for veterans and their families.<\/p>\n
Unique mental health challenges<\/p>\n
The need for events like this is significant. <\/p>\n
The latest data from the Department of Veterans Affairs shows more than 6,000 veterans died by suicide in 2023. <\/p>\n
The VA also reports that nearly 70% of veterans who die by suicide are not connected to VA care.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s fair brought veterans and their families together with services offering mental health, education and medical resources. <\/p>\n
Veterans were able to enroll with the VA, learn about benefits and claims, receive toxic-exposure and lung cancer screenings, and get employment assistance.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville veteran\u2019s story<\/p>\n
Jim Holt, an Air Force veteran who served for 12 years and deployed overseas, said he was diagnosed with PTSD while in the service.<\/p>\n
Even after separating from the military in 2013, he continues to seek treatment and care.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of military members suffer from PTSD, especially if you\u2019ve been deployed, and that was something I never grew up with in my life \u2014 it\u2019s a whole other world, but they have the resources to help us deal with certain situations we might have seen, experienced, or dealt with \u2014 physically, mentally, or emotionally,\u201d Holt said. \u201cAll of those opportunities are there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resources available<\/p>\n
The goal of events like Tuesday\u2019s fair is to put mental health care, employment and education benefits all under one roof so veterans can learn about them and have access to them.<\/p>\n
Veterans struggling with mental health can reach the Veterans Crisis Line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by dialing 988 and pressing 1.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 More than 100 organizations gathered at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on Tuesday to connect local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[502,571,116,118,117,4070,2583,5436,12276,3393,6540],"class_list":["post-414575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-community","tag-health","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-mental-health","tag-military","tag-morning-show","tag-positively-jax","tag-veterans","tag-veterans-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}