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Jeff Warren Dream Hunt Foundation
God called Jeff to start Dream Hunt Foundation in 2013. Jeff Warren Dream Hunt Foundation. Dream Hunt Foundation exists so that children and teens with disabilities, terminal illnesses, or those considered disadvantaged, have the chance of a lifetime to fulfill their dream of participating in a guided hunting or fishing trip. Dream Hunt has taken over 65 kids in the last two years on their dream hunting or fishing adventure. This year, in 2015, they will take over 100 kids! Jeff Warren Dream Hunt Foundation
Like you said, I was doing, it was actually kind of crazy, in some moments of prayer and things like that, God began to reveal to me what I really felt like He was calling me to do. So we take kids that are 10 to 18 years old that are disabled or handicapped, and some of the kids are terminally ill, some of them are disadvantaged, and what I mean by disadvantaged meaning that they don’t have a father in their lives to take them hunting. Jeff Warren Dream Hunt Foundation
We take kids like that on dream hunting and fishing trip
We take kids like that on dream hunting and fishing trips, and it’s been a blast. We started about three years ago, and it’s really taken off in the last three years and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down any time soon.
It started out as, when it all started out, I thought, ‘man, we’re just going to take a couple kids a year, me and my buddies I’ve known all my life, we’ll just take a couple kids and it won’t be a big deal.’ But as everything’s grown, we’ve actually gone to a background-check system this year, that we’ll begin implementing this year, just to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up with everybody because as the foundation’s growing, now we’re taking kids from all over the place hunting and fishing. So sometimes, this year could be the first year I may not be involved in every single hunt that’s going on, so that’s one thing. And another thing, we always have a leader meeting to make sure everybody’s on the same page, make sure all of our film guys are on the same page with what our goal is and what we’re trying to do.
It’s all about the kids
It’s all about the kids. This is their experience; this isn’t about us or what we want to get or all that, but this is about the kids, and so we try to focus on them and their family, to bless them, as a lot of them come in from out of town, actually most of them come in from out of town, so we want to just totally take care of them and make it the best experience that they could possibly have. As it’s grown, obviously everything else has to grow with it, but we have a lot of great guys, we could not do it without all of our awesome hunting guides, cameramen, that volunteer to take time away from their own hunting experience with their own families to come and take a kid in the woods that’s never been in the woods and make a memory with them that those kids surely will never forget, so that’s pretty cool.
about your hunting tradition
let’s keep it right close to home for you, and talk about your dad and your grandfather and aunts and uncles and other about your hunting tradition, when it started and what it means to you.
Well, I grew up, I’ll never forget my fourth birthday. For my fourth birthday, my dad took me squirrel hunting, and I’ll never forget sitting on a pine tree with him and we’re sitting there and haven’t seen any squirrels, but we’re sitting fight on this little fire lane, and I remember him nudging me, saying, ‘look at that.’ And I looked up and a little bitty yearling was running down this fire land and it stopped right beside me, almost close enough where I could reach out and touch it, and it didn’t see us sitting there. And it turn around and ran off, and I’ll never forget thinking, ‘when I grow up, that’s what I want to do. I want to kill those right there.’ I remember thinking that I want to be a hunter, that’s what I want to do, that’s going to be fun, right there. My grandfather never really hunted, so my dad was really into it, and so was my step-dad, and my dad got me every other weekend growing up, but my step-dad took me the weekends that my dad didn’t. So my dad was on one deer lease and my step-dad was on another, so every weekend, I was doing hunting somewhere and begging to go during the week. Any time I could go, I always wanted to go.
It was never an issue for me getting up
It was never an issue for me getting up, going early in the morning. As a kid, I remember just loving it. I love being outside, love being outdoors, and growing up in that and just learning about the woods, being out there and learning about life, things like that. So we were passionate about it. And of course my uncles, my dad’s brother was there, and my cousins, and it became kind of a family deal. After every weekend we would go, and it was my time with them, and we got to hang out, and it was just a part of life growing up. That’s what we loved. I’m fortunate enough, as an adult, that I can tie in, with the ministry that God’s given me, back to hunting. So it’s a double, because I love ministry, and I love helping others, and then I love hunting at the same time, so it’s like the perfect marriage of a career.
So I absolutely love it
So I absolutely love it, and thank God every day that the whole thing’s come about. But as far as hunting, and family, and now my kids, I have four kids, I have an eight-year-old son, a six-year-old son, a four-year-old daughter, and a two-year-old son, but my eight-year-old and six-year-old love it. Every night, before they go to bed, they want to watch a hunting show. So it’s kind of cool to see how it’s being passed from generation to generation, and it’s just become a family tradition.
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