The Honker Down Memorial Weekend was born in 2012 from a simple but powerful idea — to encourage service members to reconnect, stay active, and find healing through shared, peer-to-peer experiences in the outdoors. In this case that would be an epic two-day goose (aka: honker, hence the name) hunt! In those early years, we weren’t yet an organization—just a passionate group of people with a shared purpose and the support of a community that believed in doing good for those who served.

After conceptualizing this event, we reached out to the Birdwell family and asked if we could honor their son, SSG Christopher Birdwell, a young man from our community who was killed in action in Afghanistan earlier that year. Their blessing gave the event a name, a face, and a heart, and the mission quickly grew beyond a single weekend.

By 2015, that spirit of service and connection had evolved and grown into what is now Hero Expeditions, a formal nonprofit organization dedicated to serving military service members, first responders, and families of the fallen from around the country on outdoor adventures across our region and beyond.

What began as a dinner for about 75 people at the home of our good friends Pete and Ronda Padilla, has grown into a powerful Northern Colorado tradition, now expecting to welcome more than 400 attendees at the beautiful Island Grove Event Center. Each January, the SSG Christopher Birdwell Memorial Honker Down Reception brings together supporters, families, and heroes from across the country to celebrate camaraderie, healing, and remembrance — carrying forward the legacy of those who gave all in service of the country and communities we all love.