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New chapter highlight:
Worchester USVH:
By President Evan Maranto
We at WUSVH have made significant progress over the past few months. We established a board of directors for our chapter right from the beginning, and we are currently looking for more volunteers to recruit. Our main site of volunteering has been at Veteran's Inc. in Worcester, MA. Through Veteran's Inc, we have helped our veterans in several ways, primarily through lunch serving and site maintenance. After the effects of Hurricane Irene, WUSVH members helped one of Veteran's Inc's outreach centers by clearing fallen branches on the property and clearing the parking lot of weeds. Lunch serving has been a big part of our volunteering; WUSVH members have served lunch to the veterans at Veteran's Inc. several times over the past few months. Although we will be slightly busier during the school year, (since we are all high school students) we plan to keep our mission of helping veterans in mind and continue to volunteer throughout the school year. Currently, we are in the process of re-organizing our board of directors, since one of our directors will be leaving for college next fall. Francesca Perrone, a member of the Veteran's Inc. staff, had helped us schedule our volunteering hours on numerous occasions. We are looking forward to a successful next few months.
University of Texas at Austin USVH:
By President Damir Ljuboja
The University of Texas at Austin chapter of United Students for Veterans’ Health has, in one short semester, established itself as a prominent veterans’ organization on campus. With a six student executive board, eighteen general members (a pool that continues to grow!), and a strong partnership with the Student Veterans Association, we have undertaken a rewarding challenge; USVH is coordinating with the Dean of Students to help bring into existence the first UT Student Veterans Center, scheduled to open on Veterans’ Day 2011. USVH was involved in the official hiring process for the SVC’s managing board and labored with advocacy groups to raise over $2,000 for the new center. Additionally, USVH is working closely with the Austin Vet Center and the Austin VA Mental Health Clinic to foster relationships between student volunteers and local veterans.
USVH has touched me personally by serving as a bridge to a wonderful group of veterans, both on and off of the UT campus, whom I otherwise may not have had the pleasure of meeting. As an ex-Yugoslavian war refugee who immigrated to the United States with the help of American and NATO troops in the mid 90’s, I have a great deal of respect for the veterans who sacrifice so much in the call of duty. Although my involvement with USVH has only begun to flourish, I am confident that the years to come will be filled with meaningful work and service for our veterans.
We are excited about a new chapter that is being founded in Worcester County Massachusetts. Here is a progress update from the founder and president, Evan Maranto:
We were able to identify a number of local veterans’ facilities here in central Massachusetts that have missions that are consistent with the general mission of USVH, and, supplemented with work at Boston-area VA hospitals, will form the basis of the volunteer opportunities of the chapter. We have established the chapter leadership structure and recruited the leadership team into each of the director roles, and we have created a chapter website (http://www.wusvh.org) and Facebook page in order to create, respectively, and external presence and an internal discussion forum. Colonel John Heller, a local service academy veteran, has been recruited to serve as a veteran advisor to the chapter, and we are in contact with one or two other local veterans who may be interested in advising the chapter. We have begun looking for volunteers from local schools and have begun our outreach to local groups including contact with the Boston VA hospital system and began to line up summer volunteer activities. In terms of next steps, the leadership team will be traveling into Boston to tour the city VA hospitals and evaluate volunteer opportunities. Our goal is to have our leadership team, advisors and volunteers by the end of June and to begin the work of the chapter here in Worcester.
We look forward to seeing how the chapter develops and begins to serve the local veteran population in Worcester County! Stay tuned for more news on another new chapter in Austin, TX.
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