Jimmy’s grandparents, Joseph Miks Sr. and Jean Miks, cared for veterans every Sunday at the North Chicago VA hospital for fourteen years. Jimmy’s father, Joseph Miks, served as an MP for the US Army 458 the River Patrol in Vietnam. His father, a 100-percent disabled veteran, recently passed away from agent orange related cancer. Once the state of Illinois moved to have school in-session on Veterans Day, Jimmy worked to connect education to patriotism and to veteran service work. From 2014-2018, he acted as a founding board member for A Soldier’s Journey Home and helped students honor veterans through fundraising and character education. Students in turn helped build five homes for disabled veterans. In 2018, he left the ASJH board to begin working on Veterans Village concepts with the Nine Line Foundation. Jimmy, with the help for former ASJH board member Dave Wietrzak, helped fund and construct twenty tiny homes for NLF Veterans Village in Savannah, Georgia. He still works to help NLF with its mission to extend its Veterans Village in Brunswick, Georgia.

Jimmy’s number one goal is to serve our veterans as they work to rebuild hope and to reconstitute character. He is grateful to SALUTEINC, Roadhome, Creativets, 1Pet1Vet, Nine Line Foundation, VFW Post 1337, and to VVA 311 for supporting students in their efforts to support veterans. He gives special thanks for his colleagues and to the students at Hersey High and to the members of ASJH (now tied to the Siller Foundation) for showing him what belonging to something more important than yourself is all about. He hopes students feel patriotic about welcoming our heroes home, that they learn resilience, loyalty, courage, and other character pillars from veterans, and graduate with knowledge of 9/11, Patriot’s Day, our Constitution, and what it means to achieve something more important than a resume – our country!

As the Educational Outreach Coordinator, he is thrilled to join Project Headspace and Timing’s mission to connect veterans to the community, to nature, and to themselves. Jimmy is most thankful for his family. His wife Christine and two daughters, Madison and Molly, afford him countless hours to serve our nation’s veterans.