Friday, May 17, 2024
A Granbury resident and former veteran decided to create a retreat for veterans to help them with their mental health.
Kolton Krottinger served in the Navy from 2009 to 2013 in Somalia and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. After serving Krottinger ended up in a homeless shelter and started writing about dealing with anxiety. After writing so much he ended up creating an entire book. He was unsuccessful in finding someone to publish the book and ended up publishing the book himself on Amazon. Krottinger became a best seller in 12 hours with over 60,000 copies sold.
He was able to get out of the homeless shelter with such success from the book. He then created Facebook groups talking about the importance of mental health as a veteran and now has 250,000 group members across and reaches 30 million people in a month over the social media platform. He also created a website and is the president of the non-profit group, Anxiety of America.
After seeing the amount of support and success from the Facebook groups he had the idea of creating a physical space.
“It’s so much more rewarding in my opinion when you can do something physical,” Krottinger said.
It was then he decided to have a meeting with his family to discuss how to make this goal come about. Krottinger’s grandma suggested using his grandpaw’s property. His grandfather bought land in 1973. The property, Blue Branch Historic Ranch has now been in the family for 50 years. The family is in the process of having it named a historical property as it is the spot that Pleasant Thorp found the Indians.
The property sits on 21 acres bordering the Strouds Creek and Blue Branch Creek.
The retreat is going to be completely free to all veterans and first responders. There will be weeklong or weekend options for a stay at the property. The attendees will sleep in big tents with memory foam mattresses and silk sheets for a cozy stay. There will also be many activities and amenities. There will be camping, fishing, swimming, stargazing, hiking, paddle boating, kayaking, therapy sessions with counselors, yoga, local comedians, Wi-Fi, showers, fire pits and much more.
“The one thing guiding me to do this is creating a place that could have helped me during my dark time. I’ve lost 52 service members, mostly to suicide. I think of them, and I think if they were able to disconnect for a week or a weekend and maybe try to seek some help in a safe setting. I think the VA system has kind of failed us a bit. They just want to put us in a room and medicate us, so I think this is a better approach,” Krottinger said.
He also plans to open the tents through Airbnb rentals for the public and put the money back into the retreat for the veterans. The Airbnb prices will range from $30 to $150 dollars depending on the amenities and time of the week.
Krottinger recently became a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Granbury and is getting a ribbon cutting in the works for his new space. He plans to have the ribbon cutting and first retreat sometime in October.
For more information on the retreat, to apply or to donate, visit anxietyofamerica.org. You can also join the Facebook page under Blue Branch Historic Ranch to keep updated with the progress of the group and retreat.
