Today we’d like to introduce you to Remington Vandergriff.
Hi Remington, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My path to this work began years ago, so I’ll keep the early part brief. I first learned about Army Social Work in 2004 while in Japan for ROTC Cadet Troop Leadership Training. From that moment, I knew it was what I wanted to do. That opportunity didn’t present itself until 2009 and ultimately came to fruition in 2011. I served for several years as an Army Behavioral Health Officer before being medically retired in 2018 due to combat and non-combat injuries. Following my retirement, I continued serving Veterans through the VA’s HUD/VASH program, housing and case-managing homeless Veterans in the Clarksville and Hopkinsville areas.
In early 2025, with the direction of federal employment becoming increasingly clear, I founded Bonafide Therapeutic Alliance, LLC, a psychotherapy private practice focused on men’s mental health, Veteran issues, and clinical supervision. I transitioned to full-time private practice in May 2025. Today, I provide telehealth services across Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Vermont, Idaho, and New Mexico, while also working to establish in-person Veteran groups here in Clarksville. I am actively credentialing in additional states and hopeful that the Social Work Compact will further expand access. I accept several commercial insurance plans, TRICARE, VA Community Care, and self-pay, and I also partner with Soldiers and Families Embraced in Clarksville to provide time-limited, no-cost therapy for active-duty service members, Veterans, and their families in the Clarksville and Fort Campbell area.
In August 2025, I launched Bonafide Property Solutions, LLC, a property acquisition and development company with a mission centered on wellness, affordability, and accessibility. The company focuses on acquiring, leasing, and developing both commercial and residential properties, as well as investing in agricultural land. Its first venture is Bonafide Wellness Collective, located at 140 Wallace Boulevard in Clarksville, a wellness center designed to support small businesses and foster community connection.
Bonafide Wellness Collective operates on a lease and flexible membership model rather than W-2 employment or 1099 contracting, allowing providers to retain more of their earnings. Current full-time tenants include Ink Karma Tattoo Studio; The Green Collective, offering psychotherapy, consulting, and notary services; a trauma-informed tattoo and wellness provider expanding into meditation, breathwork, reiki, and massage; and Prana House of Hot Yoga. Our flex space members include Zen Well Acupuncture, Nutrition Intuition Health Coaching, and Bonafide Therapeutic Alliance, LLC.
We also host wellness vendors, local artists, and food trucks, and we are building toward regular community nights with music and food as the weather warms. Onsite amenities include a Patriot Pantry stocked by YAIPAK, a Free Little Library, and plans for a community garden. Our upcoming Zen Garden will be available for everything from meditation and breathwork to photography sessions and small ceremonies.
Bonafide Property Solutions has additional ventures planned, but growth is intentionally slow, steady, and deliberate. These projects are being phased thoughtfully, with future plans including affordable housing, additional wellness centers, wellness plazas, secure self-storage, and a working farm where transitioning and homeless Veterans can learn agricultural and business skills while engaging in meaningful work and supportive community.
That’s my story so far. I appreciate the opportunity to share it and look forward to serving, collaborating with, or supporting this community in whatever ways I can moving forward.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
From the outside, the road may look well paved, but it has not been smooth. There were significant struggles along the way.
Toward the end of my Army career, my mental health was deteriorating, compounded by the effects of a severe traumatic brain injury after being struck on my motorcycle. What I believed would be a 20-year career came to an abrupt and unexpected end, and I was medically retired after 16 years in uniform.
By 2019, my marriage had ended, and by 2020 I became a full-time single father to two young children. That same year, during the height of COVID, my father entered hospice after a long battle with cancer and passed away in April. Shortly afterward, my mother moved in with me. So all at the same time, I was working full-time, parenting full-time, supporting my mother, grieving both the loss of my marriage and my father, and managing my own largely service-connected mental and physical health challenges.
It was overwhelming but one of the most enduring lessons the Army taught me is this: no matter the conditions – whether you are tired, hurting, angry, scared, or grieving you move forward anyway. Call it compartmentalizing or call it resilience, but the mission continues. Providing for my children and my mother was, and remains, a no-fail mission.
As Marcus Aurelius wrote, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” I don’t share my story for pity or praise, but in the hope that it might motivate or encourage someone else. I am not exceptional. If I can navigate these challenges and keep moving forward, I truly believe others can too.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Bonafide Therapeutic Alliance, LLC
Bonafide Therapeutic Alliance, LLC is a psychotherapy and clinical supervision practice focused on men’s mental health, Veterans, and high-stress professionals. I specialize in working with men who are reluctant to engage in therapy, Veterans who have been underserved or burned by systems meant to help them, and clinicians seeking grounded, ethical supervision. What sets me apart is a direct, no-nonsense approach rooted in real-world experience: combat, leadership, systems work, and recovery combined with evidence-based clinical care. I’m most proud of building a practice that prioritizes accessibility, integrity, and results over buzzwords, while meeting clients where they are without judgment or performative therapy.
Bonafide Property Solutions, LLC
Bonafide Property Solutions exists to create long-term value through real estate with purpose. Rather than focusing solely on profit, every project is designed around wellness, affordability, and accessibility. The company acquires and develops commercial, residential, and agricultural properties with the goal of supporting community infrastructure and sustainable growth. What sets it apart is its mission-driven lens: properties aren’t just assets, they’re tools for impact. Brand-wise, I’m most proud that every venture and planned venture under Bonafide Property Solutions, LLC is intentionally tied back to improving quality of life and creating opportunities for others.
Bonafide Wellness Collective
Bonafide Wellness Collective is a community-centered wellness hub in Clarksville designed to support independent providers and small businesses without exploitative employment or contracting models. The Collective offers leased suites and flexible membership options that allow practitioners to keep more of what they earn while collaborating in a shared, supportive environment. We are known for blending mental health, wellness, creativity, and community under one roof hosting providers, vendors, artists, and events that make wellness accessible and human. What I’m most proud of is that the Collective is not a brand-first space, it’s people-first, built for service of the community it sits in.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
All of these businesses involved significant risk. Leaving stable federal employment with reliable pay, benefits, and long-term security to build something independently was daunting. While my VA service-connected disability and a modest retirement pension provided a limited safety net, there were no guarantees. Stepping away from that stability required a willingness to accept uncertainty.
Launching Bonafide Wellness Collective carried its own risks. Building a physical space, investing time and resources, and trusting that others would see the vision and choose to be part of it was very much a leap of faith. It required sustained effort long before there was any assurance of return.
I don’t see myself as a reckless risk-taker, but I do believe that meaningful growth requires calculated, intentional risk. When risks are taken thoughtfully with planning, discipline, and purpose they create the opportunity for real reward. Without risk, there is no forward movement.
Pricing:
- Remaining 10×12 office – $750/month
- Remaining 12.5×12 office – $850/month
- Flex Space Memberships starting at $100/month for 4 hours
- Vendor and Art Consignments sales for 70/30 split or shelf rent of $25 or $75 depending on shelf size
- Food Truck Hosting from $30-50/day
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bonafidetherapeuticalliancellc.com/ | https://bonafidepropertysolutionsllc.wordpress.com/ | https://bonafidewellnesscollective.com/
- Instagram: @thebonafideswer on all platforms
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBonafideSWer/ | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579984267152
- Other: amazon.com/author/thebonafideswer and thebonafideswer.etsy.com
