Valour-IT Reaches the VA!

Thanks to the PR we received due to the amazing fundraiser last November, Valour-IT came to the attention of some very influential people. The leadership of the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH) called up Soldiers' Angels and offered to help us reach wounded soldiers in the hospitals of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

While some military medical centers are handling the program at the administrative level, identifying those in need has been Valour-IT's biggest challenge at most locations. The new patient privacy laws have become a great impediment to discovering something as simple as whether a patient has been admitted, much less whether their injuries could mean they would need a laptop. To deliver the laptops, we've had to rely on simply word-of-mouth and Soldiers' Angels who already have at least partial access to the medical centers we are serving.

But now this is going to change, at least at the VA hospitals. MOPH will work directly with the VA to identify soldiers needing laptops (at VA hopsitals), and we will give the laptops to MOPH for distribution to the identified soldiers.

I spent last week in Washington DC with several other Soldiers' Angels and members of MOPH. We met the VA Under Secretary for Health and spent the day with the Director of Volunteer Services at a VA hospital where we delivered the first 7 computers to patients (It was a powerful experience, which I wrote about it on my personal blog). MOPH will be shopping the story to their media contacts and Soldiers' Angels is optimistic that it will significantly raise the visibility of Valour-IT, ultimately increasing donations to the project.

Keep your eyes open; great things are happening for Valour-IT and our ability to help those to whom we owe so much!

Suggestion for Your Christmas List

On the subject of Valour-IT and Christmas, I simply have a quote and a question for you:

I submit to you that the freedom that blogging, email, and general internet use provided me was second only to driving in allowing me to feel truly independent again. For a pittance, you can give a gift to an injured soldier that will give him him a fraction of the daily autonomy you enjoy, and return to him that which he so readily sacrificed on the altar of freedom... for you.

How many gifts you're giving this Christmas will have that kind of impact on their recipients?

It's here!

As detailed previously, Valour-IT has been so popular that we now have a waiting list for wounded servicemembers who would like to receive a voice-activated laptop. If you would like to help a wounded warrior reconnect with the world and continue to support him or her with words of gratitude and encouragement and other traditional kinds of support, we are now officially set up to take requests from potential adopters.

I know the pricetag for a laptop might seem prohibitive for many of you. But how about making it a Sunday School class project, or getting together with office mates to pool your resources? It could even be a small fundraiser for something like a scout troop. Get creative! The life-changing support this provides for a wounded warrior is really priceless. Severe injuries such as the type that require a voice-activated laptop are life-changing, and those who suffer from them need lots of support and encouragement as they begin to cope with their new life.

I've written before about what we owe those who laid it all on the line, standing in our place and coming back with the scars to prove it. Let's do everything in our power to ease the burdens they now bear because of their service for us. It's truly the least we can do if we want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror every morning...

Adopt a Wounded Soldier

Valour-IT is growing by leaps and bounds, and we are struggling to keep up with the demand for laptops. There is now a waiting list. In order to meet the demand as quickly as possible, Soldiers' Angels will be instituting the "Adopt a Wounded Soldier" program. Donors will be able to pay for a wounded soldier's laptop and stay in touch with him or her, offering support in the areas of morale and other things that may help the soldier.

Holly Aho has more on this developing program.

Stay tuned for final information, and links for getting involved.

Update: The cost of providing a single laptop may go down significantly in the near future. Hopefully a certain computer company will be providing us with either free or extremely-discounted laptops.

Cross-posted at Fuzzilicious Thinking