Don Nguyen helped build One Tribe Foundation to keep veterans from dying by suicide. In April, his own brother, Staff Sergeant Andrew Kim Nguyen — a fellow Marine who helped found the organization when it was still known as 22Kill — became one of the losses the group was created to prevent.
Nguyen is senior director and co-founder of One Tribe Foundation, the Euless-based nonprofit that says its mission is to create a community that raises awareness and combats suicide by empowering veterans, law enforcement, first responders and their families through traditional and non-traditional therapies, according to the organization. As reported by the Fort Worth Report, the foundation was founded by U.S. Marine veterans in 2013 to promote a humanity-first mentality and raise awareness of veteran mental health and suicide, at a time when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had found that 22 veterans a day were dying by suicide. Andrew Nguyen was Don Nguyen's brother, and an obituary says he served four years of active duty in the Marine Corps, including two overseas tours and a combat deployment to Afghanistan, according to Legacy.com.
After Andrew's death, One Tribe Foundation supported Don Nguyen the same way it supports the families it serves. He has said the organization has not turned anyone away and helps whenever it can, and that the foundation and its people help keep him alive and are his family, per the Fort Worth Report's reporting.
From a Hashtag to a Headquarters
The group's roots trace to 2013, when it began, in its own words, as a social media movement to raise awareness, according to its mission and history page. It became an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit in July 2015, the same account notes. One year later, 22Kill created the #22pushupchallenge social media campaign to highlight veteran suicide; the Fort Worth Report reports the challenge went viral in 2016 and raised more than $500,000, funds the organization's own history says allowed it to sponsor other veteran service organizations.
The foundation changed its name to One Tribe Foundation as it expanded its services — its own history dates that change to 2021, while the Fort Worth Report's account places the name change in 2020. Either way, the rebrand reflected a broadened focus: the foundation expanded support to first responders, medical frontline workers and their families, in addition to veterans. NBC 5 reported that One Tribe Foundation opened a 5,000-square-foot facility to provide mental health services in Farmers Branch in 2021, and that the organization said it had provided no-cost or low-cost therapy and other services since 2013.
Demand Keeps Climbing
That growth has tracked rising need. NBC 5 reported that the foundation's client intake increased 160% in 2020, with a 220% increase projected for 2021. Years later, counseling sessions for first responders increased 30% in the prior year, according to CBS Texas, which described One Tribe Foundation, formerly known as 22 Kill, as addressing the growing mental health issues for first responders and veterans. That same report cited Blue H.E.L.P. data showing 228 current or former officers died by suicide in 2019.
Today the Fort Worth Report describes the foundation as running nine programs supporting veteran communities, including veteran addiction recovery, outdoor and motorcycle programs, and programs for veterans' children. The organization's GuideStar profile describes its Tribal Council peer-support group, with meetings held every Tuesday at its Euless headquarters at 6 p.m., and a W-A-T-C-H program that it says has national reach and serves the children and families of fallen military members and first responders, per GuideStar. The foundation also hosts support groups and social events for the communities it serves throughout Fort Worth-Dallas.
The Numbers Behind the Mission
National data gives the work added weight. Veteran suicides declined for a second straight year in 2024, with 6,488 veterans dying by suicide compared with 6,662 in 2023, according to Navy Times. The veteran suicide rate dropped slightly, from 36.6 per 100,000 in 2023 to 36.4 per 100,000 in 2024, and the outlet reported an average of 17.7 veteran deaths by suicide per day, down from 19 per day in 2018 — though that rate remains more than twice that of the general U.S. population. The Fort Worth Report cites a more recent figure of 17 veterans a day.
For Jacob Schick, who co-founded the organization alongside Don Nguyen, the losses are personal and cumulative. He has said he knows eight people killed in combat and has lost 35 friends to suicide, and he has said that suffering alone is worse than suffering, per the Fort Worth Report. Schick has also said that people are human first, before other societal titles — a line that underlines the foundation's approach of treating veterans, officers and first responders as whole people rather than roles.
Ashley Schick, Jacob Schick's wife and the foundation's marketing director, has said veterans can feel alienated in their own homes and communities despite having served those communities. One Tribe Foundation prioritizes awareness of veteran suicide and reminds people who feel alone or alienated that they are worthy of love, according to the Fort Worth Report's account. Jacob Schick has said the organization continues helping people flourish after each loss — a mission Don Nguyen is now living out from the inside, grieving his brother while continuing the work Andrew helped start.
