Veterans Healing Farm director says NEA-funded arts program helps veterans cope with PTSD

Alan Yuck, executive director of Veterans Healing Farm in Mills River, North Carolina, said arts programs funded by the National Endowment for the Arts provide "a fantastic healing outlet for everyone to heal," and help veterans manage symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yuck, speaking about the farm's work with veterans and their families, said the program focuses on mental, emotional and physical well-being and uses creative, hands-on activities as a therapeutic tool. "Play gives you that opportunity," he said, adding that when "your hands are working with play, you are in the moment and everything is good." The director described how PTSD can feel like reliving a nightmare: "PTSD is something that you're thinking about what happened to you, and you're reliving that nightmare, or you're projecting what could happen to you ... you're gonna go through that nightmare. It's not real, but you're gonna go through it."

Yuck told listeners the arts program has continued beyond its initial launch and "has taken on its own life and will continue." He credited the program's start and survival to federal arts funding: "it would not have been possible had it not been for the National Endowment for the Arts." The testimony did not specify the NEA grant amount or other funders.

The remarks underscore the role local nonprofit programs and federal arts grants can play in veterans' recovery services. Yuck framed the activities as a practical, present-focused method of reducing distress and building durable therapeutic benefit. The program's ongoing status, he said, reflects both participant engagement and the earlier grant support that enabled its launch.