VALOur-IT 2009: It’s That Time Again!
This is year 4 for the Veteran’s Day fund drive to raise money for the Soldier’s Angels Voice Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops (VALOur-IT) project.
This project came about as a result of one then Army CAPT, now Major, a blogger, being hit by an IED and ending up in Walter Reed, and being asked by a rep from Soldier’s Angels if they could get him anything. “A laptop, so I can keep blogging.” Well, from one used laptop from eBay, the addition of Dragon Naturally Speaking from a gracious and anonymous donation, then the suggestion from one of his readers about wider applicability, came the program that has helped thousands of wounded warriors with sight or hand mobility issues.
In fact, if you’ll be at BlogExpo in Las Vegas (10/13-15), you can most likely meet Chuck Z, “patient 0!” BTW, he could use a little help getting there: See this post of his.
Beginning last year, VALOur-IT began providing GPS units (helps those with short term memory issues as a result of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI from IEDs), and Nintendo Wiis (gets them to do physical therapy like things, because they love to play games)
This year, the drive will run from 10/26 to 11/11.
We’re looking for bloggers and websites to promote the drive, and those who wold be so kind to exploit their email lists to help the cause. Effort? Punch our some emails with links to the donate site, and make some posts. Whip up the crowd, ask for a few $. Not hard, but worthwhile.
My allegiance is to Team Navy, but know these things:
- All money goes into one fund to support this project
- Funding only pays for the laptops, GPS units or Wiis, or their transportation…nothing more
- The competitive nature of we former service members allows us to act like we did once before in our lives
- The project affects more than just the “now” for the people it helps. It gives them a leg up on when they leave the service with disabilities, as they can operate computers, despite having had some modifications to their lives
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The project’s blog is here, if you’d like to dig in and see what the program has been and is doing now.
Thanks in advance. Please spread the word and leave a comment if you’d like to participate this year. I’ll get you to the Team Navy leader…:) Well, maybe to the other service team leaders, if I must. голова болит ÑекÑ
Categories: Air Force, Army, Blogging, Charities, Coast Guard, Jointness, Marines, Military, Navy, Supporting the Troops, Technology, Valour-IT
I need to get in touch with you – never heard back from you through email – hoping to talk with you via skype or something–please email me
[ed – done!]
by Cao on Oct 11, 2009 at 12:57 pm