Florida thrift shop helps find military burial uniforms for veterans: 'the right thing'

Thrift shop owner donates uniforms for veterans' honors

The FOX 35 Care Force is honoring a Central Florida Navy Veteran making a difference in the lives of military families as they strive to give their veterans a burial with honors. FOX 35’s Amanda McKenzie went to Jerry Vaughn’s Down the Road Thrift Shop in Titusville to learn more about his mission to help military families honor their veterans in their final sendoff one uniform at a time.

TITUSVILLE, Fla. - The FOX 35 Care Force is honoring a Central Florida Navy Veteran making a difference in the lives of military families as they strive to give their veterans a burial with honors.

The man behind the initiative is Jerry Vaughn, owner of "Down The Road Thrift Shop" in Titusville. 

Jerry's story

For the past four years, Jerry Vaughn has helped 168 families like Davitt’s across the country to find uniforms for military funeral honors.

"Welcome to Down the Road Thrift," Vaughn said as he opened the door. "Let’s take a hike to the footlocker and see what we have going on."

"We have all four branches of the military represented back here, and I know it looks kinda small, but looks can be deceiving, so this is how we do it," he said as he rolled a rack of uniforms away.

"We got approximately 500 uniforms in this locker," he said.

"Back here is all of our Marine and Navy uniforms," Vaughn said. "We keep all manner of dress blues, dress whites, officers, enlisted, anything that anybody wants to send us we take because there might be one little piece on the whole uniform that we might need to finish one off. So we never turn anything down."

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As he showed off a variety of medals, he said, "You’re locking about $2,000 by the time it’s done. So consider the family paying for everything on a funeral, and then you get to the point — how do we dress him? And we don’t because we don’t have the money, or we don’t know what to do and that’s how this was born."

"So when we’re contacted, we take that entire load off their shoulders," he said. "We go ahead and handle everything. There is no charge."

All he asks is that families provide a DD-214 so that he and his team can confirm the veteran’s military honors.

Eileen Davitt made sure to ask about her father’s final wishes.

"His final wishes were to have a military-style burial with all the bells and whistles," Davitt said.

"So I absolutely wanted to do that for him."

At 92 years old, PFC Richard Acosta Guerrero passed away in Orlando on August 24, 2025.

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He served in the Korean War as a machine gunner on the front lines and received the Congressional Gold Medal. But he no longer had a US Army uniform and his daughter didn’t know how to procure one on short notice.

"I called my local Army and Navy store and I said, ‘Do you sell uniforms from Korea?’ and he said, ‘No, we don’t, but you know what, there’s a guy named Jerry, and he knows a little bit about that — why don’t you give him a call and see if he can help you?’"

Jerry Vaughn answered that call.

"He said, ‘not only am I going to find it for you, I’m going to give it to you for free,’" Davitt said. 

"I burst into tears on the phone. I couldn’t believe it was real."

He not only found the proper dress uniform, but every single medal, patch and ribbon in less than a week.

"We know what it meant to my dad," she said. "So it was just beautiful. Just amazing and beautiful."

"It’s doing the right thing at the right time for the right people," Vaughn said.

"I am forever, forever grateful to Jerry for what he did for me," Davitt said as she touched her hand to her lips and reached out to place her fingers on the US Army emblem. "Thank you Daddy."