SOLANA BEACH — A new generation of leaders in the Solana Beach Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5431 is aiming to provide more holistic healing options for local veterans, with big plans on the horizon to upgrade and improve the facility along Highway 101.
For years, the two-story Post 5431 building serving North County coastal veterans from Del Mar to Carlsbad has served as a space mainly for monthly VFW meetings. Guy McDermott, the next commander of Post 5431 and founder of veterans’ mental health nonprofit Next Peak, saw the potential for the space to be better utilized.
Over the past three years, Next Peak has partnered with local organizations and individuals to bring in new programs at the VFW, making it a place where veterans can participate in physical therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and suicide prevention programs.
McDermott, a retired SEAL operator and first responder, said this approach is working to make the facility feel like a “second home” and draw in more members. In that time, the post has gained around 20 new active members.
“If we sit at the seat of pure acceptance and pure love for everyone that enters through that door — it doesn’t matter what your story is — and I just love you, I don’t even have to say it. They’re going to feel it. They’re going to be open,” said McDermott, an Encinitas resident.
Now, members can drop in to receive physical therapy from a soft tissue specialist upstairs, participate in meditation, meet with a therapist, or share a conversation over soda water.
Soft tissue therapist Brandon Taylor is able to perform physical therapy twice a week at the VFW through the Peaceful Warriors Foundation, which funds sessions for veterans. He said physical therapy is just one of the many ways veterans may become connected to services at the VFW, while others may resonate with psychotherapy, yoga, or simply a sense of camaraderie.
“It’s about access points,” Taylor said.
While expanding services at Post 5431, Next Peak is also planning to raise $1.5 million to transform the building into an integrative, holistic healing center, an effort called Project Restore Hope.
The planned restoration would add more spaces for physical and mental therapies, increase the available indoor space for meetings, and create a coffee shop element to be run by a local veteran business owner. Other upgrades would include workstations for veterans, increased handicap accessibility, utility improvements, and an updated commercial kitchen.
In order to make this happen, Next Peak will be holding fundraising events in the community. Project Restore Hope aims to expand outside of Solana Beach, and provide similar services at other VFWs.
“I want the community to wrap around this,” McDermott said. “I want the Solana Beach VFW to become the model for the whole United States.”
Climbing the peak
McDermott said the journey that would eventually lead to Next Peak — which focuses on filling the gap in mental health services for veterans and their families — started years ago when he was working as a firefighter and paramedic after retiring from the Navy.
One day, he received a critical call about a 14-year-old boy who had been hit by a drunk driver, and upon stepping off the rig at the scene, he felt himself freeze. McDermott said the incident, preceded by years of trauma, led to a great deal of shame manifesting in panic attacks, a back injury caused by tension, and even thoughts of ending his life.
“I can separate myself from what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I couldn’t separate myself from that boy,” McDermott said. “I had to go to the very bottom.”
The light at the end of the tunnel came after years of focused inner work and powerful shifts in perspective, a process he called “slowly climbing the peak.”
“As I was climbing this peak, I punched out of the smog… and I was like, oh my gosh, this is absolutely beautiful,” McDermott said. “So, what am I going to do? I’m going to go back down and grab someone else. Let me guide you up this path that I just found. I ended up creating Next Peak out of that.”
Justin Davis, a former Fleet Marines Forces corpsman who now works for the Navy, is a San Diego veteran who has been leading a meditation-guided suicide prevention group at Post 5431 for around seven months. He became involved with Next Peak and the Solana Beach VFW after meeting McDermott while the two were petitioning for the Treat California initiative in 2023.
Davis now serves as Next Peak’s director of spiritual services and said he has seen more veterans embrace meditation as a means of grounding themselves.
“What I notice is that they are so pleasantly surprised at how much it makes a difference. It’s one of those things that can be a difficult sell, but I think on the whole, once people start to do it, they really take to it,” Davis said.
As a previously homeless veteran who has struggled with mental health, Davis sees the need for more holistic veteran resources beyond what can be provided by the Veterans Affairs agency. He said many VFW posts operate as “glorified bars,” setting the Solana Beach VFW apart.
“As somebody who is eight years sober, I couldn’t set foot in a VFW,” Davis said. The model we really see for the VFW is a place where we’re not following one particular creed. There are traditional therapies, breathwork, recovery meetings … I’ve been gathering surfboards, and in the summer, I want to have a surf club here where we can all head down to the water.”
For McDermott, having a reciprocal relationship with the community is crucial. He said he wants Next Peak and the VFW to hold several large service events throughout the year, and he wants to hear from the community about what these events should be.
“The culture that we have is, ‘Hey, we’re not here to take,” McDermott said. “A big part of that is serving the veterans, but the other part of it is serving the community that’s actually allowing this to happen in the first place.”
For more information about Project Restore Hope or to donate, visit nextpeak.org/project-restore-hope.
