Meet the new executive director of Eagle’s Healing Nest

SAUK CENTRE — A Marine and Army veteran is now leading Eagle’s Healing Nest, a 124-acre campus where veterans reside in an environment with peer-to-peer physical and mental healing.

Shawn Kor, 48, is an Army and Marine veteran with a wife, Mandy, and five children — four daughters and a son. He is an American Legion member with Sauk Centre Post 67. He started as executive director of the Nest on Dec. 1, 2023.

Kor said leading the Nest isn’t about one person.

“Whether I am executive director or not, I don’t see a scenario where I am not part of the Nest,” Kor said. “Mel Butler (founder and prior director) had a great vision, but it’s the volunteers and veterans who come through here that make the Nest what it is.”

Kor graduated from Worthington High School before entering the active-duty Marines, serving from 1995 to 1999, mainly at 29 Palms Marine Corps Training Center. He then served from 1999 to 2023 in the Minnesota Army National Guard, primarily drilling at 1-125 Field Artillery in Luverne.

With the Marines, he deployed in 1996 and 1998 to places in Asia. The Guard sent him to U.S. bases in Europe in 2003. In 2011, he deployed to Kuwait.

He received his bachelor’s degree at Bemidji State, even though it meant driving all the way down to Luverne. Eventually, the military brought him to central Minnesota. He presently lives north of Nelson, east of Alexandria. He retired as command sergeant major.

Kor became involved at the Nest when he attended an event there in the summer of 2023. A lieutenant he had deployed with had lived at the Nest for a time and recovered thanks to its veteran-focused supportive environment.

“I was shocked. I had never heard of it,” Kor said. “I lived 20 miles away.”

The Nest asked him to join the board. He applied and soon the board asked him if he would be the new director. He was hesitant at first.

“I did research. The place and what it was doing for veterans seemed too important to fail,” Kor said.

Founded in 2012 by military mom Melony Butler and her veteran husband, Blaine, the Eagle’s Healing Nest is on the site of a former state reformatory school for juveniles. The place housed girls from 1911 to 1967, then switched to co-ed until closing in 1999.

Beginning in 2022, Eagle’s Healing Nest got into hot water with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office over the blending of personal and organizational finances and failing to maintain proper controls. Kor helped guide the Nest through discussions with the Charities Division of the Attorney General’s Office and an agreement was reached in March 2024.

Under the agreement, the Nest severed ties to the Butlers and must remain in compliance with charity laws and strengthen its financial checks and balances.

Kor said a big piece of that is creating transparency, with the board of directors, volunteers, veterans in residence, donors and the general public. The state put the Eagle’s Healing Nest back in good standing on May 24, 2024.

Example: Kor comes right out and says the contract for deed for the land was in default. The Nest worked with United Prairie Bank, Minnesota National Bank and the Initiative Foundation out of Little Falls to replace the contract for deed with a mortgage.

Hutchinson City Councilor Tim Burley, a past commander of Hutchinson American Legion Post 96 and past chairman of the Department of Minnesota Public Relations Committee, is a longtime advocate and volunteer for the Eagle’s Healing Nest.

“The Nest was always supposed to be run by veterans,” Burley said.

He says American Legion posts that have donated to the Nest in the past can rest assured their donations will be properly handled. He encouraged them to resume their support.

“It’s a place where we can call and get a veteran to a safe place immediately,” Burley said. “It has programs that help reduce suicide and get veterans back on their feet. I am involved in helping veterans leave here.”

Unlike some veteran nonprofits, the Nest is not one-person centric, Burley said. Many of the programs, such as art classes, have been developed by the veterans themselves. The classes are put on by veterans for veterans.

“Veterans are intelligent and we know how to heal ourselves, and we just ask for the support and resources. We like to have purpose, to build and create,” Burley said.

Next steps? Kor said the mission of healing veterans remains the same. However, four areas need attention: maintenance of buildings, vehicle upgrades, reviewing onsite outpatient services and bolstering services.

“People don’t fall into categories needed to receive help, and the Eagle’s Healing Nest is one place they can come to get that help,” he said. “Also, we don’t set a timeline for recovery.”

Kor has been speaking to groups around the region and said he would be happy to speak at any post meeting or event.

He said the Nest never will become government-funded.

“We don’t want strings attached to the services we are able to provide.”

He listed resources:

Peer-to-peer recovery living environment.

Transportation to equine therapy services.

Assistance with leaving the Nest.

Outpatient addiction services.

Substance abuse counseling.

Recovery support programs.

Alternatives to violence classes.

Outings, experiences and retreats.

Continuing education and training.

Gym.

Music studio.

Rock shop.

Art therapy.

Outside partners that come on the campus to provide health, wellness and massage therapy.

The current board of directors comprises a banker, an attorney, a math teacher, a nurse, a high-ranking Mason and a military mom who lost her son to suicide. Some are veterans.