It was Cathy Stallings McWilliams Vietnam veteran-husband Jesse Stallings suicide, in the early 1980s, that led her to found the Vietnam Era Veterans Outreach Center in Fitchburg. The center was opened to treat Vietnam veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. It became Montachusett Veterans Outreach when it expanded its focus to offer services to all veterans.

Ms. McWilliams, Cathy to all, told the many local and state officials gathered at a grand reopening of the center August 4, 2006, that she realized the extent of stress-related ailments suffered by veterans, when her husband, then in the National Guard, was told he could not march in the 1980 Memorial Day parade because he had a beard.

The incident, she said, sent her husband in an emotional collapse from which he never recovered.

He was a broken man, she said.

She learned from a newspaper article not long after the parade that the mood swings and bouts of depression and anger experienced by her husband were typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, there was no place locally for someone suffering from the ailment to seek help.

The outreach center was first opened using a conference room at the Foster Grant Co. Fitchburg Mayor David Gilmartin later allowed them to use an office in City Hall and make calls on his telephone.
I didn't have a clue what I was doing then, Cathy said.
The center moved to Gardner's National Guard Armory, and then to the school. It made several moves after that, finally finding a permanent and now modernized home on Central Street.