National Association of American Veterans, Inc. (NAAV)

NAAV assists severely injured members and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly single parents. We help access their benefits and coordinate support from health agencies, educational organizations and the public.

How do you help people in my community?

Our website naavets.org will provide resources for severely wounded, single parent service members, veterans and their families around the nation, especially in rural areas where it is difficult to get transportation to VA Medical Centers, support for family members particularly those who are single parent service members and veterans. In Phase II of our website, we plan to create a chat room for service members, veterans and their dependents.  In addition, plans are under way for NAAV’s first Gala Celebrity Fundraiser in support of our severely wounded, single parent service members and veterans and their families in late 2008.  We will reach out to the military families and the public for support of this major endeavor.  To date, NAAV has sponsored Guided Imagery CDs to Soldiers serving in Iraq as well as to family members on the home front.  We plan to have these CDs and other health care information available through our website in the future.

This special event will help service members and combat veterans and their families in the local communities around the nation.

Why do you need my support?

Your donation can help the severely wounded, single parent service members and veterans get the emergency assistance they need to get back normalcy to their lives and the great challenges they face keeping the family together.  Careful estimates show that today, one of every three Soldiers returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters is injured, and one in five is disabled with long-term needs for care.  Battlefield medicine, rapid Transportation, and new biomechanical technologies are saving the lives of larger proportions of seriously injured Soldiers and Marines than ever before.  But those marvelous medical advances also leave many heroic young veterans in debilitating circumstances that they struggle to overcome.  The network of Veterans Administration Medical Centers meets their medical and rehabilitative needs extraordinarily well, but other aspects of their lives are still in pieces that need to be picked up.  For other veterans, dramatic changes in their life circumstances during and after military service – and the problems those changes create – are less visible. For single parents and their dependents, in particular, the price to their families of the contributions they make to the security of all Americans cannot easily be repaid.  What is the lasting cost, for a 2-year-old, of 18 months living in the sole care of a grandmother?   Your donation can support  those seriously injured service members, veterans and their families who are starting their long journey with family members toward recovery.  NAAV believes that family is a critical element for the patients’ successful rehabilitation and reentry back into the military or civilian work force.

Working with other social service organizations (including some not specifically focused on veterans,) NAAV can provide hands-on guidance in locating affordable day care, career decision-making and transition into the work force, advanced training or further education, and longer-term career coaching – all necessities to succeed in the working world.  We collaborate the military, the VA, and a range of other service-providers to personalize assistance in the search for appropriate housing (often hard to locate for the mobility-visually impaired) and psychological counseling in a wider community setting, help that is especially valuable for the children of single parents service members and veterans who have been deployed for extended periods.  In Washington, DC and other affluent cities, and for single parent service members and veterans with limited funds, affordable housing and child care are especially challenging to locate, and NAAV is especially responsive in such cases.  Personal service adds qualitative value to the public (and private) information we provide.

On a larger scale that service-delivery and communicating information, NAAV acts as an advocate for the rights of veterans, who have risked their lives in serving America selflessly and bravely.  Obviously their right to health care of the highest standard should be made clear – to veterans themselves and, if necessary, to providers.  NAAV also supports veterans’ right to tell their stories in a non-threatening environment and to document those stories for future generations with the Veterans’ History Project, its publications, and its websites.  This process of remembrance is itself healing, and NAAV provides the necessary introductions.

When timely provision of benefits and rights to which a veterans appears to be entitled are called into question, NAAV has arranged for pro bono counseling and, if indicated, representation by the Washington office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Ellis Gates LLP.  NAAV also hope to act as a conduit to policy-makers, helping the voices of the veterans we serve to reach such sites as the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, the House Armed Services Committee, and the Congressional delegations states where NAAV is operating.  NAAV is an advocate for veterans and want to be a voice for the voiceless, challenged veterans who are struggling to re-adapt to everyday life.  If media attention for NAAV experiences seems warranted, NAAV will not hesitate to seek publicity that serves the interests of service members’ and veterans’ full integration into civilian life.
What is your vision?

NAAV Vision:  To serve as a comprehensive nonprofit organization that values the honorable and selfless service of our nation’s service members and disabled veterans.

NAAV is unique among veterans’ associations in that we focus on meting the needs of severely wounded servicemen and women, particularly those who are single parents.  We also assist the spouses and families of those services members who have died in conflict.  While our immediate concern is with those families whose members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, NAAV also helps U.S. veterans of all wars.

Your donation of $25.00 or more can help a single parent service member or veteran pay
for telephone or utility bills, counseling, medical care information, bus transportation for medical recovery activities, toiletries, and personal items needed while recovering.

NAAV’s eventual programs when fully operational, in summary:

• Emergency assistance 
  
• Counseling & Bus Transportation
  
• Veterans General Support Funding     
  
• Post-Traumatic Stress Treatment
  
• Veterans Medical Support      
  
• Veterans Housing Support
  
• Veterans Educational and Training Support  
  
• Advocacy for service members’ Veterans’ needs

The chosen mission of NAAV is to serve all veterans, and their dependents, from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, Desert Storm, Operation Iraq Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

How can I be sure that you will use my money wisely and won't waste it?

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