When Tyson Trunkhill left the Iowa National Guard in 2020, he had served 21 years, advanced to the rank of Army captain, been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and earned a medical retirement due to several extensive physical conditions and a PTSD diagnosis.
Somewhere along the line, he had discovered that archery helped relieve his stress, so in 2019, he started giving archery equipment at no cost to other veterans and first responders to help them deal with their stress.
“It’s just a way for them to get into archery, do something that’s physically active but not strenuous exercise, and kind of motivate them to get up off the couch and get outside, get some fresh air, shoot your bow,†Trunkhill said.
He owns a small archery shop in Denver called Sticks & Stones Archery. The “stick†part is the bow, and the “stone†is the arrowhead, referring to old hand-formed arrowheads.
The equipment donation program is called the Dust-off Project. Trunkhill explained that it’s run as a non-profit organization that collects used and sometimes new archery equipment that is donated by fellow archers and other industry businesses.
“I redistribute it to veterans and first responders at no cost to them to get them involved in archery as a form of therapy for PTSD-type symptoms,†he said, adding that people don’t have to have PTSD to get equipment or to benefit from archery.
“Archery is just a very therapeutic sport, because when you’re doing it, most people, most of the time, the only thing they’re thinking about is pulling that arrow back and letting it go,†he explained. “So it just kind of takes their mind off of family issues, PTSD-related things, the stress of work. It focuses them on something else.â€
Since 2019, Trunkhill has given out more than 100 bows, he said, plus occasional related donations such as hunting clothing. The project seems to do what he intended.
“All kinds of guys started coming to me saying, ‘Hey, you’re right. It works.’â€
Veterans and first responders who might like to try archery therapy should contact Trunkhill through Facebook, either at The Dust-off Project by Sticks & Stones Archery, or just Sticks & Stones Archery, or through his personal page, Tyson Trunkhill.
“The requirement is you have to be new to archery,†he said. “I’m not giving archery equipment to experienced archers, because they probably already have their own.â€
There are occasional exceptions to that rule—after a house fire, a divorce, a lost job—“but most of the time it’s just guys new to archery looking for something.â€
In Trunkhill’s experience, people who try archery tend to like it.
“I’ve never had anybody return a bow to me and say they didn’t like it,†he said.
