Make cards thanking and supporting our wounded warriors
Woolsey House Wing @ the Service-Learning Office
8:00 AM-3:30 PM
(UD During Personal Free Time)
(UD During Personal Free Time)
MD/LD/PD: Office basket collection
Cards will be mailed 11/20/2013
Cards will be mailed 11/20/2013
From Point of Light Foundation
On Veterans Day, three powerful stories of service
This Veterans Day, I’d like to pay tribute to all veterans by telling you the story of three people – a boy who lost his dad on 9/11, an Army helicopter pilot and West Point graduate, and a Marine coping with PTSD. All three are making a difference through their service to America’s returning heroes.
At age 5, Sean Egan lost his father, a New York fire captain, on 9/11. Today he is a senior at Monsignor Farrell High School on Staten Island and founder of Hearing Our Heroes, an organization of 300 high school students who regularly visit and help veterans. They shovel snow in winter, do yard work in the summer, and come up with a surprise every now and then.
This summer, they surprised returning combat veteran Army Private Rasheed Akbar. During his deployment in Kuwait, Rasheed's young daughter was diagnosed with cancer and underwent treatment. Like too many other military families must, the Akbars had to endure great sadness and hardship while separated. When Rasheed's tour of duty was finally complete, Hearing Our Heroes honored his service and his family's sacrifice with a celebration of his homecoming.
Sean is today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner. Read more about him here.
Erica Jeffries served in the Army for five years, flying helicopters to deliver supplies to the troops. Today she’s a diversity officer at Exelis, a defense and aerospace company in Reston, Va. Exelis partners with Points of Light and AmeriCorps to support the Community Blueprint and Veteran Leader Corps, national programs that coordinate and improve services for returning veterans and their families.
Erica is one of the Exelis Action Corps leaders who are dedicated to serving veterans and military families. Erica and her co-workers volunteer regularly with Fisher House, a nonprofit providing temporary housing for military families near hospitals where their loved ones are recovering from combat injuries.
“When I was on active duty, my mother was able to stay at Fisher House in Texas while I was in the hospital,” says Erica. “It was a wonderful gift and a blessing to our family.” Read more about Erica's story here.
Heath Cobb, a former Marine who served in the Middle East, returned home with what he calls “the scars of war.” As he writes, “Rehab and mental institutions became commonplace. My often bizarre behavior was fueled by rage and I found myself in a vicious cycle of hate.”
An aunt suggested to Heath that he get involved in the community as a volunteer. The effort turned his life around. “I found the pride I felt when serving others was the same pride I felt by defending others,” he writes. “Suddenly, almost overnight, my sense of self was restored, my identity renewed.”
Today Heath is an AmeriCorps member and a member of Points of Light’s Veteran Leader Corps serving other veterans in Georgia. Read more about him here.
Today let us remember, thank and celebrate veterans. And let us honor their service and sacrifice through our actions. Please volunteer, advocate for and support veterans and their families. Click here to learn more.
In service,
Tracy Hoover
President
Points of Light
Veterans Day
Monday November 11, 2013
Veterans Day Cards made by LD After School Care and Boys and Girls Club were delivered by Mrs. Clay to Epwort Villa .
Casady Orchestra honors Veterans Day with a concert for Veterans at Epworth Villa
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| Celebrate the power of families who volunteer together supporting neighborhoods, communities, and the world |
NOVEMBER 23, 2013
From Generation On. ORG http://www.generationon.org/parents
Family Volunteer Day, a Points of Light signature day of service, demonstrates and celebrates the power of families who volunteer together, supporting their neighborhoods, communities and the world.
For 22 years, Family Volunteer Day has been held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to "kick-off" the holiday season with giving and service. This year Family Volunteer Day takes place on November 23rd. Disney Friends For Change is the presenting sponsor of Family Volunteer Day 2013 and Embassy Suites is a supporting sponsor.
Volunteering as a family is fun! Family volunteering encourages the members of a family to volunteer as a unit. It can be done by the whole family together, by one parent and one child or teen, or with extended family such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It can be as simple as creating cards for children in the hospital or as complex as bonding hundreds of families together in a day of service at a community park. However families choose to do it, families engaged in service can help mobilize thousands of new volunteers and instill in the next generation a lifelong commitment to volunteering.
Get Involved!
Families are super teams! The combination of ages and generations in your family means you have everything needed to effect meaningful change in your community: energy, creativity, passion, knowledge, experience and different perspectives and skills (plus practical things like a car.)
- Find a volunteer opportunity near you! (Please note: this links you to HandsOn Network's Action Centers across the country).
- Want to create your own family volunteer project? Here are some examples to get you started!
- Reflection: An important part of participating in service is reflection. Chances are that you will learn something from the experience of helping others. Download a tool to help you with reflection.
Additional Resources
Family Volunteer Day Toolkit (pdf)This is a guide for families to use together to plan their service projects. The combination of ages and generations in your family means you have everything needed to effect meaningful change in your community: energy, creativity, passion, knowledge, experience and different perspectives and skills.
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