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2008 Awareness Week Resources Coming Soon!
Thank
you for your interest in National Home
Awareness Week 2008.
The VFW National Home for Children Awareness Week is March 23 – 29, 2008.
Every year, the National Home asks the VFW and its Ladies Auxiliary to participate in National Home Awareness Week. In past years, we asked that you spread the word about the National Home by holding fundraisers and writing letters to your local newspapers.
This year, we are asking you to celebrate Awareness Week a little differently. What is most important to the National Home is to carry out its mission, which is to serve families of our nation’s veterans who are in need. For National Home Awareness Week 2008, we are offering our assistance to you to help your Post or Auxiliary do what it does best: Help children and families of our nation’s veterans.
Not only does the National Home help families of VFW and Ladies Auxiliary members, but we also assist active-duty military who are deployed overseas (regardless of membership status). The same services that are offered during deployment are available afterward when they become a member of the VFW or Ladies Auxiliary, which is a great recruiting tool for the VFW.
Here is an example of how the National Home has assisted an active-duty soldier during deployment in Iraq:
An approved family plan was not working out for a father of two very young children. Feeling helpless all the way in Iraq, he sought answers. He contacted his family to help, but due to conditions out of their control, no one was able to take care of the children. A friend of the family had heard about the services offered by the National Home and referred him. After making a few calls, his prayers were answered and within days his children were placed in the safe care of loving child-care workers. After he completed his deployment, the father was able to reunite with his children.
If not for the National Home, what would this father do? The answer is unknown, but thankfully he was able to peacefully sleep at night knowing that his children were safe and in the care of the National Home. Upon joining the VFW, this father will be able to utilize the National Home’s services again, or even further down the road, his grandkids or great-grandkids will be eligible to receive services if ever the need arises.
For Awareness Week 2008, the National Home is going to help your Post or Auxiliary in spreading the word in your own communities about the life-changing services that the National Home offers to families of VFW and Ladies Auxiliary members.
In late February, all Posts will receive a packet of National Home information. To save on expenses, we are sending this packet to the attention of the Post and ask they share the information and materials with their Auxiliary. Upon request, however, additional packets or specific materials can be sent (please call us or go online).
The packet will include a poster, informational rack cards, and a sample press release you can send to local newspapers. We ask that you hang the poster exclusively in your Post. The informational rack cards will be for distribution throughout your community. We ask that you take them to appropriate places such as military bases, family and child services, welfare offices, etc.
The press release will be written for you to customize. It will depict a situation in which the National Home can help, complete with contact information. We ask that you send it to every local newspaper in your community. Further directions for all materials will be included in your packet.
The packet will not ask you to fundraise for the National Home, but of course donations are always needed, welcomed and greatly appreciated!
If you have any questions, please call the National Home at (800) 424-8360 or email slyon@vfwnationalhome.org.
Once again, we are here to help you help children and families in your own community by using the life-changing services of the National Home. Participating in Awareness Week 2008 will be a heartwarming experience helping VFW Posts and Auxiliaries all across America reach out to our honored veterans and active-duty military.
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