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Written by Wendy Milonas
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Designsondemand.com will give the immediate family of a fallen hero a free picture dog tag. They also have many other items of interest for Gold Star and Blue Star Families, such as magnets, and other personalized items containing the picture of your hero.
The link for Gold Star Family items is in the left sidebar, halfway down...
Their website: DesignsonDemand.com
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Written by Marilyn Custer
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VA Suicide Prevention Program Adds Chat Service
VA Press Release - The Suicide Prevention campaign of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is expanding its outreach to all veterans by piloting an online, one-to-one “chat service” for veterans who prefer reaching out for assistance using the Internet.
Called “Veterans Chat,” the new service enables veterans, their families and friends to go online where they can anonymously chat with a trained VA counselor. If a “chatter” is determined to be in a crisis, the counselor can take immediate steps to transfer the person to the VA Suicide Prevention Hotline, where further counseling and referral services are provided and crisis intervention steps can be taken.
Veterans, family members or friends can access Veterans Chat through the suicide prevention website. There is a tab on the left-hand side of the website that will take them directly to veteran resource information. On this page, they can see the Hotline number (1-800-273-TALK), and click on the Veterans Chat tab on the right side of the Web page to enter. {discuss forum:1} |
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Written by Marilyn Custer
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With your support, we have provided more than 17,000 tickets to Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom hospitalized service members and their families, worth more than $22 million (average savings per ticket is currently about $1,300).
How to Donate Miles | Watch the Hero Miles video
The nonprofit Fisher House Foundation administers the "Hero Miles" program for the Department of Defense in accordance with Public Law 108-110, the FY 05 Defense Authorization Act. The program is comprised of individual airlines whose passengers donate their frequent flyer miles to assist service members and their families. Specifically, Fisher House Foundation provides free airline tickets to military men and women who are undergoing treatment at a military or VA medical center incident to their service in Iraq or Afghanistan, and their families.
There are two categories of eligible recipients:
- Service men and women with an approved leave of five or more days may be given a free round trip airline ticket for a trip from the medical center to their home and return if they are not eligible for government funded airfare.
- Qualifying service men and women may be given free round trip airline tickets to enable their family or close friends to visit them while they are being treated at the medical center.
Assistance
Download Airline Fact Sheet (Acrobat PDF)
Fisher House™ is proud to partner with Hero Miles in support of our wounded and injured service men and women and their families. We have partnerships with the following airlines:
Please note that our agreements with individual airlines only permit airline tickets for military (or DoD civilian employees) hospitalized as a result of their service in Iraq, Afghanistan, or surrounding areas, and their families. These tickets can not be used for R&R travel, ordinary leave, emergency leave, or other travel not related to a medical condition.
New! Hero Miles Frequently Asked Questions
Read a press release about this program
Public Service Announcement (Adobe PDF)
How to Donate Miles
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Written by Marilyn Custer
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Sesame Workshop Aims to Help Military Children, Keep Families Connected
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 16, 2009 – “Sesame Street” usually conjures visions of Muppets teaching young children their letters and numbers, but they also teach life lessons to help military children cope with deployments, injuries, and now, loss.
Sesame Rooms provide a child-friendly place for military children to play. Sesame Street will send a “room-in-a-box” to 35 locations across the United States, including military hospitals, libraries, child care centers, and family support centers. Photo courtesy of Sesame Workshop
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. |
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The newest phase of Sesame Workshop’s “Talk, Listen, Connect” initiative is aimed at helping children cope with the death of a loved one.
“Sesame Workshop is committed to providing our military families with the resources they deserve,” said Gary E. Knell, president and CEO of Sesame Workshop. “We hope that ‘Talk, Listen, Connect,’ which reaches out to all families with young children, will continue to help families discover ways they can be resilient despite experiencing difficult transitions in their lives.”
“Talk, Listen, Connect: Helping Families With Children Cope With the Death of a Loved One” will consist of bilingual, English and Spanish, multimedia materials for young children and adults starring the Sesame Street Muppets.
Sesame Workshop will produce and distribute materials at no cost through organizations that provide services to military families and the general public, including grief centers, social services, and other programs specifically addressing the needs of children and families coping with the death of an immediate family member. The kit materials also will be available online at www.sesamestreet.org/tlc.
The workshop also unveiled the Sesame Street Family Connections Web site and announced the creation of 35 “Sesame Rooms” during a news conference today at the Military Child Education Coalition’s National Conference in Philadelphia.
The Sesame Street Family Connections Web site is a child-centered, online space that will keep military families connected across the globe.
With the help of their favorite Sesame Street friends, family members can compose encouraging messages to each other, share artwork and videos, upload photos, and get answers to some questions they may have but didn't know how to ask.
“This rewarding opportunity to collaborate in launching such a creative Web site provides a vital tool in the recovery, resilience and reintegration toolbox that our military families need and deserve,” said Army Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Loree K. Sutton, the director of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, who helped make today’s announcement.
“Families and warriors will be able to stay connected and share in a safe and nurturing place, joined by their special Sesame Street friends,” he said.
Additionally, Sesame Workshop, with the support of New York designer Jonathan Adler and several generous partners, will provide a rich and engaging set of materials to brighten up spaces it’s calling “Sesame Rooms.”
These rooms provide a much-needed, child-friendly place for military children to play.
Sesame Street will send a “room-in-a-box” to 35 locations across the United States, including military hospitals, libraries, child care centers and family support centers
“The Military Child Education Coalition is delighted to partner once again with Sesame Workshop on its initiatives that have been uniquely beneficial to military children and their families,” said Patty Shinseki, a member of the MCEC Board of Directors, during the event.
“Elmo and his friends, Sesame’s beloved characters with whom children connect so well, serve as conduits for dealing with the difficult issues in nurturing and sensitive ways,” she said. “These valuable tools and resources for fostering resilience help children to thrive during the good times and challenging ones.”
The Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and several other organizations, including Military OneSource and the USO, have provided support for the “Talk, Listen, Connect” initiative. |
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Written by Marilyn Custer
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The Armed Forces Reserve Family Assistance Fund (AFRFAF) is a 501(c)3 under IRS regulations and was established to support deployed Reservists with financial assistance. Qualifications are that the service member, any branch, Reserve or National Guard, who is now deployed or has been deployed, can apply for a grant based on financial need.
Application can be made at http://www.afrfaf.org/index.htm. Applications can be made by the service member or family member.
No means testing is done. The applicant must demonstrate proof of deployment and provide a specific requirement to be funded. Such items include invoices or bills. AFRFAF has also provided assistance for modifications to a domicile to accommodate injured or wounded service members. In these instances, a more detailed proposal is submitted for review.
Payments are made to the vendor, landlord or repair shop directly upon confirmation of the information. Grants are made for one-time events and are intended to remove financial pressure. Rarely do they entertain second requests from the same service member.
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