PHOENIX — Ahead of Veterans Day, veterans in our community are still finding ways to serve.

At Spaces of Opportunity, a community garden in South Phoenix, help was needed to build a new streambed in the children’s area.

“We’re breaking new ground here for Phoenix Detachment, pouring some concrete and sprucing up the opportunity areas,” said detachment leader Gary Streeter.

Phoenix Detachment is a branch of the national organization Mission Continueshelps connect veterans with community service projects near where they live.

This is often a difficult task, but veterans welcome the challenge. Streeter says projects like this help veterans on Team Phoenix know they’re still making a difference.

“A lot of veterans struggle when they go out because they don’t have people in uniform around them anymore, there’s no common mission, which is what we’re doing today,” Streeter said.

Nate Williams is one of their volunteers and left the military in 2016.

“As a Marine, we don’t show the struggles,” Williams said. “But this isn’t the easiest time.”

Williams says he encourages all veterans to be part of a community when they leave the military, whether it’s ‘The Mission Continues’ or another organization.

“It’s a big world,” Williams said. “You leave a big world and enter a world that you thought was simple and small but is much bigger than you thought.”

Working on a project together here ensures having a support system when the work is done.

“It’s extremely gratifying to me that people are connecting here, making new friends and making new connections, that’s what this day means to us,” Streeter said.

Their work goes beyond Veterans Day. All month long, ‘The Mission Continues’ detachments across the country have been working on over sixty projects to help communities across America.