Join VA as we gear up for National Volunteer Week, April 17 – 23, 2022. As part of National Volunteer Week, we are looking to leverage some of our country’s greatest assets –Veterans – to support “VetServe 2022,” a campaign to strengthen volunteer capacity across the Nation on April 21, 2022.
Organizations are encouraged to visit RallyPoint to post opportunities, success stories and outcomes of successful Veteran volunteer service in the community: VetServe 2022: Share Your Service Success Stories Below! | RallyPoint.
Veterans are encouraged to engage with their local communities to give back through volunteer service.
Start planning now to be a part of VetServe 2022 on April 21.
Need ideas to get involved? Check out the links below:
- Volunteer with VA.
- Soldiers’ Angels.
- Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing.
- HUD.
- AmeriCorps.
- Citizen Corps.
- Volunteer.gov.
- National Park Service.
- American Cancer Society.
- American Red Cross.
- Habitat for Humanity.
- Rebuilding Together.
- Points of Light Foundation.
- United Nations Volunteers.
- VolunteerMatch.
- Volunteer Solutions.
- Operation Gratitude.
- Volunteers of America.
- Mission Continues.
- Team Rubicon.
- Team RWB.
- Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).
- Travis Manion Foundation.
- WWP Volunteer to Help Veterans.
- Pat Tillman Foundation.
- Welcome to Blue Star Families.
- The Elizabeth Dole Foundation.
- Challenge America – Leading Resource for Veterans and Their Families.
- International Rescue Committee (IRC).
- How to Help Refugees | Get Involved Today | World Relief.
- Health and Human Services – Administration for Children and Families (hhs.gov).
- Health and Human Services – Resettlement Agencies Listing.
- CARE – Fighting Global Poverty and World Hunger.
- Home – Bob Woodruff Foundation.
Veteran Service Organizations:
- The American Legion.
- AMVETS.
- Disabled American Veterans Charity (DAV).
- Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
- Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA).
- Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).
- Vietnam Veterans of America.
- Blinded Veterans Association.
If your organization has volunteer opportunities, please submit them using the Volunteer Directory link.
The sharing of any non-VA information does not constitute an endorsement of products and services on the part of VA. Verify information with the organization offering.
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What about Team River Runners. I am seeing them empower and challenge veterans through Whitewater Kayaking.
I am a volunteer with them and would love to see them added here.
Are there any activities going on around Fort Knox or Louisville, KY area?
Our all volunteer Funeral Honor Guard just happens to be doing a Veteran funeral service on 04-21-2022.
It’s good to see Team Rubicon (https://teamrubiconusa.org/volunteer/) listed. A disaster response non-profit assisting communities affected by disasters at no-cost. Volunteers are trained to provide any of our capabilities.
Please add the Vets in Action Civitan Club to your list of all volunteer organizations. We are a Civitan Club dedicated to assisting Veterans in the Albuquerque area. Our membership consists of active duty, retired, and military veterans, their relatives, and those who want to support the local military community.
Suggest adding Quilt of Valor (QOV) to list of organizations using all-volunteers. Several are vets, vet spouses and moms. Guys can quilt or assist in awards too! I was a SSgt, USAF and do the local area scheduling of awards. QOV website is the national org. QOVf.org
I would not mind helping out at the National Park Service.
I was asked at a White House conference by the IRS, which gave me an MOU, to put an IRS program into the VA. He asked me and we received the support of the VA General Counsel. I spent two years developing and testing the program on my own dime. The project was handed to a top executive at the VA who did not respond until I sent some very aggressive emails to her, and she completely dismissed it – and it turned out she was given an ultimatum by the IG to resign or be charged with felonies for her accepting money from a client nonprofit while working as a senior VA executive.
My lesson learned is when government executives are corrupt, they cause a great deal of problems which multiply existentially. They are a disincentive to want to help when it takes a lot of our time and money for naught. Under Secretary Perlin broke a valid contract with NYS as partner with a DNA program. NYS spent $45 million when Perlin pulled it and later privatized it when he turned it into the Million Veteran Program. It was valued at a minimum of $5 billion at the time. A few years back he facilitated a $111 million contract over five years – the company to receive $20 million a year for five years to do 2,000 DNA tests a year. NYS would have done them for free without limiting the examinations to 2,000 per year. The unspoken for $11 million would appear to be a commission/consulting fee for Perlin, who also received a million dollars when he left the VA to run a private company.
We set up an agreement for the NYS DNA center to provide cost-free base line tests for the 69th Infantry when they were activated which could then be used to compare a post deployment DNA test to determine what exposures, if any, they had. It was nixed by some General for their own nefarious reasons. They never received the baseline tests – which would have expanded to cover everyone deploying. How mush did that failure cost the soldiers, families and the taxpayers when the VA costs to deal with after the fact explosion in ongoing needs?
These perpetrators do not even get a slap on the wrist. They are following in the footsteps of Col Forbes, one of the first Directors of the new Veterans Bureau, who between 1921 and 1924 embezzled $200 million while denying 85% of WW1 veteran claims.
We were left hanging, veterans were left being underserved, and valuable IRS programs fizzled. We never received any correspondence explaining anything. The VA has undergone a remarkable revolution starting with Secretary Shinseki and I am a firm believer in the medical and other programs for us. Big but, when these frauds are allowed to occur we pay over and over and veterans lose out, and taxpayers lose out. In these cases the VA lost value and money.
In short, veterans wanting to work with the VA need to vet the programs and the people in charge or face an ignoble end to their efforts.
I’d like to learn more!