Dearest Supporters & Friends,
The work that is now Mission Belonging — previously known as CBAW — began in 2010 with a personal determination to ease suffering, in others and in myself. Working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, I recognized the dissonance between a country at war and the glossy sheen of social media. When we gathered around a table and made art together, we felt that loneliness lift.
The language of intentional vulnerability and sacred witnessing may have been foreign to the military health system, but the need was undeniable. The program grew into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Ft Belvoir Community Hospital, where I met Joe Merritt — an artist and Marine who'd lived through very different things than I had, but arrived at the same conclusion: we must witness one another to survive.
From the very beginning we've seen that creative expression can build connections across lines that usually divide people. Through research partnerships we've begun to see how our programs can affect health outcomes quantitatively.
In 2025, the ground shifted beneath us, as it did for so many organizations. Some grants we'd counted on were cancelled. Our donor community stepped up to close the gap, and we moved forward with resolve. We launched a new online platform to better understand our community and the impact we're having, and to give our participants a safe all-human place, free of ads or AI, to connect. We deepened our partnerships with LGBTQ+ organizations to reach more gender-diverse veterans as transgender service members faced sudden discharge; and we completed the third and final year of our first-ever research study.
A Summit Impact Fellowship gave me space to step back and see the organization clearly — leading me and our board to rename ourselves Mission Belonging, a name that reflects what we'd actually built. I also spoke about this work at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco.
None of this would be possible without the unwavering support of our donors, volunteers, participants, and community partners. Joe often says, "Hope is an action word." I marvel that we all actively hoped our way here. We need one another, and hope, more than ever.
Seema Reza is a poet and essayist and the author of two books: A Constellation of Half-Lives and When the World Breaks Open. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Writing and Community Building from Goddard College. In 2010 Seema began working with service members, veterans, and their families at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and has since developed a unique multi-hospital arts program that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization. In 2015, the USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore awarded Seema the Col John Gioia Patriot Award for her work with service members in military hospitals. Seema is a 2019 George W. Bush Institute Stand-To Veteran Leadership Scholar.
