America’s Campus for the
Next Generation
82 acres in Vass, North Carolina.
Children of Fallen Heroes is developing 82 acres in Vass, North Carolina into a permanent national campus — infrastructure built around education, innovation, leadership, service and opportunity for the next generation.
The land is secured. The campus is being developed.
Explore the VisionEleven Years of Service.
One Permanent Home.
Children of Fallen Heroes was founded in 2015. Over eleven years, CFH has reached more than 15,000 youth and families across the country through STEAM education, aviation programming, leadership development and national experiences.
All of it has been delivered without a permanent home — event by event, city by city, partner by partner. Programs were built, run and taken down. Relationships with schools, industry and partners restarted with every location.
Securing 82 acres changes that. Permanence means programming that continues year-round rather than event to event, disciplines that reinforce one another instead of operating separately, and partners able to build sustained, continuing relationships with a campus that stays in one place.
Eleven years of programming and more than 15,000 youth and families served provide the foundation for what comes next.
Built From a Promise. Built for What’s Next.
America’s Campus for the Next Generation grows directly out of the commitment Children of Fallen Heroes was created to keep — to the children and families of fallen military members, Special Operators and first responders. That commitment does not change, and it does not move to the background.
The same campus creates opportunity for a wider next generation:
- ◆Children and families of fallen military members, Special Operators and first responders
- ◆Foster youth
- ◆Caregivers
- ◆Students in Title One schools
- ◆Military and first-responder families
- ◆Young people reached through educational and partner programming
The campus expands the legacy. It does not replace the people CFH was built to serve.
What Will Happen Here
America’s Campus for the Next Generation is designed around five connected areas. They are not five separate programs sharing a property — they are disciplines that teach each other. A drone is aviation, engineering and technology at once. A field is agriculture, science and land stewardship at once. STEAM is not a single classroom on this campus; it is the thread running through all of it.
STEAM + Innovation
Hands-on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics — taught through real systems rather than worksheets. Robotics, emerging technology and design work that connects directly to the aviation, agriculture and outdoor programming planned for the same 82 acres. CFH delivers STEAM programming across the country today; the campus is being developed to give it a permanent home.
Aviation + Aerospace
Aviation and aerospace exposure, drone technology and flight-adjacent learning. This is where mathematics becomes navigation, engineering becomes airframes and control systems, and technology becomes something a student actually flies. CFH aviation experiences are among the organization’s most established programming. A grass runway and supporting aviation infrastructure are planned as the campus develops.
Agriculture + Equine
Agriculture education, equine programming, animal science, environmental learning and land stewardship. On 82 acres the science is soil, water, animals and seasons — and the technology is the drones, sensors and data that modern agriculture already runs on. Equine programming is planned as an educational and leadership experience for young people. This is where students see that working land and advanced technology are the same field, not opposite ones.
Leadership + Service
Leadership development and mentorship drawing on veterans, the military and Special Operations community, first responders and educators. The campus is planned to give those mentors somewhere to return to — a place where relationships with young people continue past a single event.
Flynn Field
Multipurpose Athletics & Youth Development
More than a field. A legacy carried forward.
Named in honor of Staff Sergeant Liam A. Flynn, USMC, Flynn Field represents our commitment to the children and families our fallen heroes leave behind—and the opportunities still ahead of them.
Read the Story of Flynn Field →
Athletics + Outdoor Experiences
Athletics, team development, outdoor education and experiences that use the land itself. Physical challenge and outdoor learning sit alongside the classroom and the flight line, not apart from them.
Why 82 Acres
Eighty-two acres is not the achievement. What it makes possible is.
Scale is what allows aviation, agriculture, equine programming, athletics, outdoor education and STEAM to exist in the same place at the same time — and to be taught as one thing rather than five. A drone program needs open ground. An agriculture program needs land that stays put. Outdoor education needs terrain. Equine programming needs acreage, not a room.
Permanence is what allows year-round programming instead of scheduled visits, student cohorts that return across months and years instead of a single afternoon, and partners who can build curriculum, place equipment and send people knowing the campus will be there.
The campus is located in Vass, North Carolina.
Building the Campus
America’s Campus for the Next Generation is a long-term development project. Here is exactly where it stands.
Campus Activation Center
The first permanent year-round building planned for the campus. The land is secured and site preparation is underway; the Campus Activation Center is the step that would allow Children of Fallen Heroes to begin operating from the property while the larger campus is developed.
- ◆STEAM classrooms and hands-on learning
- ◆Youth athletics and training, including basketball and volleyball
- ◆Flexible community and event space
- ◆CFH offices and administration
- ◆Meeting and partner collaboration space
- ◆Campus operations, restrooms and support areas
The Long-Term Vision — Flagship Facility
The long-term vision includes an approximately 73,000-square-foot, three-story flagship facility designed to expand CFH’s national STEAM, aviation, technology, athletics and Next Generation programs.
- ◆Integrated indoor wind tunnel
- ◆STEAM classrooms and laboratories
- ◆Robotics, drone and aviation education
- ◆Next Generation training
- ◆Corporate and workforce-development spaces
- ◆Conference and community event facilities
- ◆CFH mission and administrative spaces
- ◆Rooftop event and gathering area
Shown as part of the long-term campus vision. Final design, engineering and timing remain subject to development.
These buildings are infrastructure. They exist to support the campus — not to define it.
Built Through Partnership
A campus like this is not built by one organization. America’s Campus for the Next Generation is designed to be built with corporations, foundations, government agencies, universities, school systems, educators, industry, defense and aerospace companies, agriculture and technology companies, military and veteran organizations, first responders, nonprofits, philanthropists, community organizations and volunteers.
Corporate and institutional partnership
Companies and institutions can participate through sponsorship, equipment, technology, expertise, program and curriculum collaboration, workforce exposure, volunteer engagement, in-kind support and financial investment. Corporate partnership is structured through Children of Fallen Heroes’ corporate partnership process.
Philanthropic support
Foundations, donor-advised fund holders, family offices, philanthropists and major donors participate through charitable giving that supports mission delivery, program development and permanent campus infrastructure.
The two paths are distinct, and CFH treats them that way — in structure, in stewardship and in how each relationship is managed.
As the campus advances, significant campus partnership and recognition opportunities may be developed. Specific opportunities, participation requirements and approval processes are established by Children of Fallen Heroes as each stage of development moves forward.
Founding Campus Partners
There is a window that only exists once.
Founding Campus Partners help make possible the programs, capabilities and infrastructure being developed during this formative stage of America’s Campus for the Next Generation — while the ground is being prepared, the first building is being planned, and the campus is taking shape.
Participating now is different from supporting a completed campus. Founding Campus Partners take part during a period that occurs one time in the life of this organization, and their support helps establish the programs, capabilities and infrastructure that will shape the campus’s next chapter.
Children of Fallen Heroes is inviting corporations, foundations, family offices, government partners and philanthropic leaders to help build it from the beginning.
Become a Founding Campus Partner