Our Team

Sarah Ledford – Co-Founder, Heroes Recovery Foundation, Inc.

Sarah Ledford is the Co-Founder of Heroes Recovery Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping veterans rebuild their lives through recovery support, housing assistance, employment resources, financial guidance, and a strong sense of community.

Inspired by a lifelong appreciation for those who have served, Sarah's passion for supporting veterans stems from her own family. Her father and grandfather proudly served in the United States military, instilling in her a deep respect and gratitude for the sacrifices made by our nation's heroes.

To Sarah, the mission of Heroes Recovery Foundation is deeply personal. She believes that far too often society forgets the men and women who fought to protect our freedoms. Her belief is simple: they fought for us, and now it's our turn to fight for them.

The vision for the foundation began after witnessing close friends and loved ones struggle with financial hardship, homelessness, addiction, and emotional pain following their military service. Seeing these challenges firsthand convinced Sarah that simply caring was not enough—there needed to be action. She developed a plan to create an organization focused on restoring hope, stability, and opportunity to veterans who deserve a second chance.

Sarah's own life has been shaped by perseverance. As a mother who has overcome significant personal hardships, she understands the determination required to rebuild and move forward. Through resilience, hard work, and an entrepreneurial spirit, she built a successful small business, Designer Cresties, while creating a thriving family.

Professionally, Sarah brings more than 20 years of leadership experience across financial banking, retail services, and information technology. Throughout her career, she has trained and developed more than 2,000 individuals. She returned to school to study Cybersecurity and has earned numerous awards for exceptional leadership, employee development, and exceeding sales goals. Sarah's leadership is defined by compassion, determination, resilience, and organization.

Her vision includes structured recovery programs, employment assistance, financial education, peer mentoring, group support, and long-term stability for veterans.

Sarah partnered with Christie and Loli because they share the same commitment to serving veterans. Having known Christie for many years as a close friend, they united around a shared vision to create meaningful change.

Above all, Sarah's greatest desire is to see every veteran regain their dignity, confidence, purpose, and hope. She believes every hero deserves the opportunity to recover, rebuild, and rise again.

Because every hero deserves more than our gratitude—they deserve the opportunity to recover, rebuild, and rise again.

Christi Marchetti is the Founder and Executive Director of Heroes Recovery Foundation, Inc.

Christi Marchetti is the Founder and Executive Director of Heroes Recovery Foundation, Inc., a developing nonprofit organization dedicated to helping veterans rebuild their lives with dignity, stability, and hope.

Christi's connection to military service is deeply personal. Her two sons proudly serve in the military, and herfather is also a veteran. Through their service, she has developed an even greater respect for veterans,active-duty service members, and the families who support them. She has also witnessed the painful effectsthat addiction, alcohol misuse, gambling, and financial hardship can have on veterans and their loved ones.These experiences have strengthened her belief that veterans deserve compassionate support without judgment.

Helping others has always come naturally to Christi. Friends and family often describe her as being "alwaysin mom mode" because she instinctively cares for people, welcomes those who need a safe place, and works to make sure no one feels forgotten. Her nurturing nature is at the center of who she is, and she finds genuine joy in helping others move forward. Christi also believes deeply in celebrating people's accomplishments, achievements, and milestones. To her, recognition is more than a kind gesture; it creates positivity, builds confidence, honors a person's life experiences, and reminds them that their progress matters.

Her vision for Heroes Recovery Foundation reaches far beyond creating another recovery home or halfway house. She believes veterans need more than a temporary place to sober up before returning to the same circumstances and habits. They need an opportunity to rebuild every area of their lives.

Through the Foundation's future flagship program, Operation Phoenix, Christi envisions a complete life-rehabilitation program for veterans who want change and are ready to thrive, strive, and regain confidence in themselves. The program is being designed not only for veterans experiencing addiction, but also for those facing homelessness, financial hardship, unemployment, lack of access to benefits, or other major life challenges. Her goal is to help each veteran work toward a complete transformation in their personal life, financial affairs, health, education, career, relationships, and future independence.

This mission also reflects Christi's own life experiences. She understands struggle, perseverance, and rebuilding because she has lived through them herself. As a young single mother, she raised her sons without child support while working tirelessly to provide stability for her family. She graduated from high school a year early and continued building her education and career through determination and hard work.

Over the years, she earned a cosmetology license, barber license, massage therapy certificate, and specialized training in full-body waxing. During difficult economic periods, she worked as many as three jobs and nearly 100 hours a week to support her children.

Christi has more than 20 years of professional experience in hairstyling, barbering, customer service, business ownership, leadership, scheduling, client care, conflict resolution, and daily operations. She is also continuing her education through project management studies at Eastern Florida State College. Her professional background has taught her how to manage responsibilities, solve problems, communicate with people from all walks of life, and remain focused during challenging situations.

The idea for Heroes Recovery Foundation began after Christi purchased land with the original intention of building a home closer to her father as he grew older. She wanted to be there for him in the same way he had always been there for her. Over time, she began to feel that the land could serve a greater purpose and become something much bigger than herself. After seeing a social media video about recovery housing, her thoughts moved beyond the business opportunity and toward the human need behind it. She began imagining a safe, structured place where veterans could receive meaningful support and rebuild their lives.

Her sons remain a constant source of inspiration and motivation. Christi has often thought about how she would feel if either of them ever faced hardship, felt lost, or did not know where to turn. Her door has always been open to her children and their fellow service members. She believes that if she were ever unable to help them herself, she would pray that someone else would show them patience, kindness, and compassion. That belief is at the heart of Heroes Recovery Foundation.

Christi's leadership is grounded in compassion, determination, resilience, organization, faith in people, vision, and the ability to work through conflict with understanding. She is committed to building the Foundation carefully and responsibly, creating strong policies, trusted partnerships, sustainable programs, and a safe environment for the veterans it will serve.

Her long-term vision is to provide safe housing, structure, recovery support, education, employment assistance, financial literacy, mentorship, wellness resources, and a clear pathway toward independent living.

Through Operation Phoenix, she hopes veterans will regain their dignity, confidence, purpose, stability, and belief in their own future. She also envisions a culture in which every phase completed, goal reached, and milestone achieved is acknowledged and celebrated as proof of progress and personal growth.

When Christi shared this dream with her longtime friends Sarah and Lolie, they believed in the mission and joined her in helping build it. Together, they are working toward creating an organization where veterans can feel respected, supported, and reminded that their lives and stories are far from over.

Because every hero deserves the opportunity to rise again.