By Cassandra A. Fortin on March 31, 2010

A love of family, a critically-ill child, a life-threatening illness and a wounded friend brought four women together for a common cause.

Two paid employees, and two volunteers, these women help make up the heart and soul of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) Fisher House.

“The volunteers make the Fisher House a home away from home,” said Jodi Land, the business manager of JBLM Fisher House. “They give the house that personal touch that makes it more than a lodging facility.”

Opened in 1992, the JBLM Fisher House is one of 43 located throughout the nation. The concept to start the Fisher House was a dream of Pauline Trost, the wife of Admiral Carlisle Trost, the Chief of Naval Operations.  She presented the idea to Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher and in 1991 the first home was dedicated in Washington D.C.

Typically the houses – which are gifts to the government – range between 5,000 and 16,000 square feet, and contain between 7 and 21 suites that can accommodate between 14 and 42 family members at a time.  The JBLM Fisher House contains 7 suites, a living room, a dining room, kitchen, and a laundry room.

Like the JBLM Fisher house, the people who keep it up and running also have a story.

Land came to the Fisher House in 2001 after she applied for and was hired to be the business manager. Previously she worked as the volunteer program manager for the Army Family Team Building Program.  While there, she discovered her affinity for working with families.  Nine years later, she finds her job at the Fisher House fulfilling and uplifting.  She is especially touched by the volunteers and what they do, she said.

“It is very humbling for me to watch the volunteers and see what they do here,” she said. “You see negative stuff and the greed of people on the news and then you come here, and you have no choice but to realize how generous people are.”

Also the wife of SFC Michael Land, an infantry stryker soldier who is deployed, she is getting a firsthand peek at what families go through when a soldier is injured, she said.

“I’ve never been faced with a medical crisis,” she said. “But I’ve been married to a soldier for 16 years.  This has been a hard job for me. … We all get very emotionally attached to the families.”

Things really hit home for Land when a family friend was injured, she said.

“A couple days prior to my friend being injured, my husband was right next to him,” she said. “Knowing that makes it hard not to get emotionally involved with the families. We reach out to our guests. We’re listeners.”

Leah Miller learned what good listeners the volunteers and staff at the Fisher House can be, when she and her husband SSG Jason Miller stayed at the one in San Antonio when their daughter Riley, now 4, was critically ill when she was two-months-old, she said.

“The people at Fisher House helped ease our burden of worrying about a place to stay,” said Miller who started volunteering at Fisher House in January.  “I wanted to volunteer here to give back for Riley.  And besides that, what better place is there to volunteer?”

Miller who serves as the event coordinator for Fisher House, has already learned ways she can help ease the burdens of the people who stay there, she said.

“It is important when you see someone with a need, or a sick loved one to do what you can to ease their burdens,” she said. “It is not about what we cannot do, it’s about asking ourselves, ‘what would you do to put a smile on someone’s face’ and then doing it.”

Amy Harcourt discovered Fisher House after her husband SGT Jeremiah Harcourt – a mental health specialist – did a six month rotation at Fisher House.  He was so happy working there, that Amy decided to give it a try. For almost a year she has worked as the volunteer coordinator, overseeing about 61 volunteers who work in the house and at events, and her husband volunteers with her, she said. Although it is rewarding, the hardest thing for her, is when wounded soldiers come through, she said.

“I try not to put my husband in their shoes … or say that could be my husband,” said Harcourt whose husband is deployed. “Working at Fisher House is like parenting your first child, because you learn from every experience.”

However, what touches Harcourt the most is the outpouring of community support, she said.

Recently, the Fisher House attended a mock dining in event hosted by the JBLM Officer’s Spouses Club during which the spouses of soldiers try to donate the most needed items, she said.

She was overwhelmed by the response, she said.

“I was at the Fisher house when the items were delivered,” she said. “I sat there and cried because they had done so much to help.  Working here is awesome.”

Harcourt also has the perspective of a patient to bring to the job, she said. She was diagnosed with a cavernoma, a congenital, non-hereditary malformation of a vein situated in the brain or on the spinal cord, she said.

“I am a patient a lot,” she said. “I have frequent MRIs. I drag my feet when I walk, I bump into corners of walls, and I have horrible balance.  I know what it is like to be the soldier’s wife, and what it is like to be a patient, so working here is therapeutic for me. This is the most rewarding job – paid or unpaid- that I have ever had.”

Nicole “Nikki” Wasierski started out as a volunteer and then took a paid position as the operations assistant a little over a year ago.  With her husband – SSG David Wasierski, a sniper section leader for a stryker battalion – deployed to Afghanistan, she finds the life lessons that she has learned invaluable, she said.

“Anyone can get injured, or get a sick,” she said. “Knowing that the next person to get hurt could be my husband makes me more sympathetic. I came here because I wanted to serve my community.  I wanted to do something that makes a difference.  Being here, I know I’m helping the families of soldiers.  I know what I do matters.”

Charitable contributions are an important source of funding for the JBLM Fisher House. To make a donation to the JBLM Fisher House, visit the Web site at www.fortlewisfisherhouse.org and click on the support heading.  Instructions are provided to make contributions through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) or direct donations through the mail, or online.