Pay it Forward Spotlight Award: Cedar Springs veteran Dean DeCanter

This month's Pay it Foward Spotlight Award shines a light on a veteran whose shared experience leaving the service inspired him to make a change, and he hopes it starts a chain reaction.

Dean DeCanter is the founder of the West Michigan Veterans Ranch.

DeCanter served in the Army for almost 20 years. When he came back, he had an experience thousands of veterans have faced over the years.

"We don't have our brothers and sisters around us. Our family, our military family is gone," DeCanter said. "We don't know what to do."

DeCanter was lost, without a direction, but he found the right heading in his drive to help other veterans.

He said, "I had to learn the hard way [that] I needed to find a purpose and my purpose every single day is find a friend, find a need and make a difference every single day of my life."

He's done that through creating the ranch. Established as a nonprofit in 2016, he hosts monthly coffee and doughnut hangouts for other veterans looking for camaraderie.

In the back of Flo's in Belmont, Charles Smith and David Batchelder have a chance to talk to others who have experienced the same thing.

Smith said help just wasn't there for him when he left active duty with the Navy in 1970.

"I like to come out here because there's coffee and doughnuts. I also just like hanging out with other veterans ... even the Navy guys," Batchedler, an Army veteran, joked.

In addition to the monthly hangouts, DeCanter secured a private recreational facility on 41 acres in White Cloud.

"A place where we can stay for the weekends, short term," DeCanter explained. "And then we also have events like blacksmithing, wood working; we got different things going on up at the property."

After we told him he was the FOX 17 Spotlight Award winner, DeCanter said he just hopes it inspires others.

"I appreciate the opportunity," he said. "And thank you very much for this honor. But again, if I could give it to somebody as a motivator, as a desire to give them time with somebody else, with their loved ones, it'd be an incredible world that we could live in."

Know a veteran, a healthcare professional, or a first responder who should be our next Pay it Forward Spotlight Award winner? Nominate them here .

Next month's spotlight will focus on a healthcare professional.

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