Many former service members transition to civilian life through food-related ventures, including these local ones that also help other veterans

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Four Roots associate Taylor Ferguson packs a box of fresh produce that will go to food banks in Eastern Washington.

Brittany Tyler is on a mission. The former U.S. Navy linguist and petty officer second class wants to get food into the empty hands, mouths and bellies of her Eastern Washington neighbors. She also wants to provide reliable income for area farmers, ranchers and food providers.

Since 2021, Tyler has been doing both through Spokane-based Four Roots, a food distribution organization she co-founded. The endeavor reflects Tyler's military experiences both during active duty and since leaving the Navy in 2010.

Four Roots stands at the periphery of typical food coverage, yet addresses a vital aspect of the overall food narrative: where our food comes from. Now run by Tyler and business partner Lisette Walser, the nonprofit Four Roots initially offered retail food boxes and currently focuses on We Feed WA, a Washington State Department of Agriculture program created during the COVID pandemic and subsequent state-ordered shutdowns.

"We secured a small We Feed WA contract in November 2021, providing roughly 380 to 450 boxes per week to four to five hunger relief organizations," Tyler says.

By July 2022, they were doing 10 times that. To date, Four Roots has distributed more than 41,000 boxes of food — roughly 581,000 pounds — since its first state contract, with plans for pushing out 2 million pounds of food between now and June 2023.

Tyler knows she's up to the task, in part because of her military background.

"I am no stranger to long hours and hard work," says Tyler, who graduated from Mt. Spokane High School and, at 17, followed in the footsteps of her father and maternal grandfather to join the Navy. (Her brother is an Army veteran.)

After Tyler finished her six-year stint, she earned an associate degree in baking and pastry and a bachelor's in hospitality management, both in Baltimore.

"During that time, and my subsequent employment in the restaurant industry," says Tyler, "I grew to appreciate not only the preparation of food, but where it had come from and how it came to be in my kitchen and on the plate."

A year and a half ago, Tyler was back in Spokane and working with a local nonprofit coalition of farmers markets in a program similar to We Feed WA. When the program ended, Tyler interned at Vets on the Farm.

"Their program is absolutely amazing," says Tyler, who learned from the organization about market gardening — seeding, planting, harvesting, selling and row crop maintenance — as well as the ins and outs of Good Agricultural Practices certification, a federal program to ensure safe food handling.

Vets on the Farm, says Tyler, "really gives you a comprehensive boots-on-the-ground education."

Located a couple miles south of Spokane city limits on the Palouse Highway, Vets on the Farm is both a working farm growing produce with a few chickens and ducks — the farmstand is closed for the season — and a support network for veterans transitioning into civilian life.

Created in part by the Spokane Conservation District in 2015, Vets on the Farm has worked with more than 200 area veterans, partnering with Washington State University Extension's Cultivating Success program for sustainable small farms education.

Next year, funded in part by a state Veterans Affairs farms grant, the farm will offer both paid stipends for first-year participants and a farm manager program, for which Vets on the Farm manager Grant Weber sees a definite need.

"There's a lot of people that are getting out of farming," Weber says. "They don't want to sell their land, but they don't want to farm, and they need someone to come help run it."

Weber was thinking about starting his own farm when he retired from the Air Force after 21 years, including several deployments to the Middle East.

"I was in a civil engineering squadron," Weber says. "And we would go and build up tent cities and runways and whatever — or tear stuff down — then we'd go on to the next place."

Weber found that "big agriculture isn't something you just dive into," however, and went looking for options. After seeing Spokane Conservation District Director Vicki Carter's presentation about Vets on the Farm, Weber volunteered, eventually becoming its paid manager.

The farm is more than its three-plus acres of well-ordered fields and a growing flock of chickens, however: It also provides outreach. That can include public speaking, teaching, such as at the conservation district, and helping veterans make what is often a challenging transition to civilian life, Weber says.

In a 2019 television segment for KSPS-TV's Northwest Profiles, Weber explains that every branch of the armed forces teaches you how to "do your job, how to be in the military, but they don't spend one day teaching you how to be a civilian."

Chris Kieres swapped a Marine Corps uniform for that of a firefighter when he left active duty more than 20 years ago. Since 2014, in addition to working for the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department, Kieres has run Paragon Brewing, which he started with wife Kerry.

Kieres has remained close with many former military members and makes new connections to the veteran community, too, especially through Paragon's Warrior's Ethos brewing project.

When they learned that Yakima Chief Hops combines different hop varieties into a "veterans blend" and donates a percentage of sales to a veteran-related charity, the Kieres had an idea. For the past four years, they've invited area veterans to come help brew Warrior's Ethos, aka "the warrior's code." The couple also donate a portion of sales to charity, which this year is Shadow Warriors Project supporting veterans through such programs as canine companions.

Warrior's Ethos, an IPA, will be available at Paragon Brewing and potentially on tap elsewhere in North Idaho, Kieres says. So far, Bunker Bar in Post Falls has signed on to serve it, says Army veteran Trace Miller, who co-founded the bar in 2019.

The businesses in this article are just a handful of the veteran-owned venues throughout the Inland Northwest, a comprehensive list of which doesn't exist (we reached out to local, state and federal organizations in search of one).

Kieres thinks he knows why veterans might not want to promote themselves that way.

"We're proud of what we did," he says, "but it's not the cornerstone of our business." He feels a little funny about people thanking him for his service, he adds.

"You're thanking me for something I feel privileged to have done."♦

Carrie Scozzaro is the proud daughter of a retired Army major whose military career allowed him to meet his country's needs while supporting his family. To this day, she gets teary-eyed over "Taps."