Assistance for rent, utilityities, and deposits. Assistance with lan lord landlord tenant issues and application and appeals process. They provide education, employment, and job search. Transportation assistance. Financial literacy and budgeting, and physical and Mental Health care refers federals. Referrals. Our West Virginia benefit Assistance Program began as a pilot serving 25 veterans. They provide outreach to veterans in the Community Using a peer model. These volunteer vets are certified as veteran Service Officers. They develop a trust realings relationship and educate veterans about what benefits they have to assist them. The program was so successful they tripled their funding base and expanded their services with the projection of serving four times the veterans they serve now. The veteran appeals support project is one area or one program that they are providing services to. The other is the veterans employment support project. And that is using mobile Technology Kits to v. S. O. s to be used in the rural areas to serve veterans who do not have transportation, access to internet, or resources to get to a center. Each kit includes necessary items for job search. They complete, print, split applications, and communicate with agencies or employers. The strategy is to ensure meeting veterans where they are. Physically, emotionally, and professionally. V. S. O. s assist veterans to navigate the employment process by resume writings, helping completing applications, transportation to interviews, retrieval of documentation, assistance obtaining appropriate identification documents, clothing for interviews, job fairs, with employers, veterans are identified by the partnerships in homeless shelters, v. A. Hospitals, jails, and other community groups. Our Second Service is with volunteerism in v. A. Hospitals. We were one of the original v. A. Volunteering services. T was created in 1946 at the request of the v. A. And made up of five Service Organizations. They assist with coordination, plans, and policies for Community Participation of the programs. And its governed by the National Advisory committee comprised of Many NationalService Organizations. The volunteers support the recovery and rehabilitation of veterans as they prepare for their transation to civilian life. Some of the services we provide there are patient escort, animal visitation programs. We assist in therapy programs. Comfort cart distribution. Administrative support for clinics, pharmacies, transportation, patient rehab, personal services, and community living. We also have licensed volunteer professionals, nurses, doctors, Rehab Specialists that support the v. A. Medical staff for rehab services. The American Red Cross also offers service to veterans and their families by connecting them with local, state, and National Resources through their local chapters. Their partnerships we provide case coordination and referral to mental, Behavioral Health care, financial, legal, and educational support. We offer information about cemetery burial benefits and other unique needs. As well as our red cross chapters provide services for Emergency Needs for food, clothing, shelter, preparedness, training, reconnection workshops, and blood services. Our reintegration support which is the last service that we is an to veterans important tool and strategy to assist them with challenges in civilian life. Its important for reintegration of veterans. It provides in communities free of charge workshops that are 90 minutes to 120 minutes long. They are in small groups focusing on one of several topics including communicating positivelyly with Family Members, employees, employers, and others in the community. Coping with trauma and managing and recognizing signs of stress. We offer information about ptsd and t. B. I. Healthy ways to manage anger by learning triggers of emotion and changing how we think about situations and then behave. And skills to change feelings of sadness an despair while recognizing and helping others who are depressed. The groups are interactive and provide a powerful model for Group Cohesion and universality. The facilitators, we have about 50, licensed meant 350, licensed Mental Health professionals, they are red cross volunteers in the community, nationally and internationall. Some are veterans, some are spouses or other Family Members. The future of red cross is about expanding those v. A. Benefit Assistance Programs. Using a piertopier support model for case coordination, advocacies, appeals pros test, and combine with information referral and other social Service Programs and individual communities. It well also expand our reconnection workshops on our stress and trauma module with the existing trauma module that mind, s blending our body, skills program. Deep breathing, meditation, for those veterans who have been diagnosed with ptsd or t. B. I. That were borne out of their combat experiences. We are also launching a couple of new modules for military children and children of veterans next year. One on communication, another on coping skills. Id like to in your packets, i dont know if you received if you have a packet from red cross. But in the packet theres a list of websites and contact information. And are our about our services. Thank you so much for having me on this panel. I wanted to leave you with a quote that i heard from an iraq and afghanistan veteran. He says, we dont want pity. We are not broken. We just need a little help to reintegrate back to the new normal. Thank you. [applause] well hear from beryl for the amvets. Thank you, mike. It is a pleasure to be with you and thanks to j. D. Moore and kenny for having something to do with the reason im here today. And i just want to share with you that i really appreciate your theme for this convention. Advocates for change from dialogue to action. I may going on 43year career nonprofit executive and i have sat through far too many meetings upon meetings where there was nothing but dialogue and discussion. And no action. So seeing this and being a part of the reality of when you leave here that we may facilitate some sharing of opportunities for action is tremendous. Something that served me well over the years early on in my career. A quote from a little known poet author of lebanese origin, who said a little bit of knowledge acted on is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle. Said another way, its better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Having said that, what i want to do is kind of give you a real quick overview, make sure you undersoon stan who amvets, american veterans, a major Veterans Service organization, is. Then talk about some programs. There are a whole host of programs from a through z that take place across the country. Many of them at the local levels. Dye ann diane mentioned one of the things red cross is doing is voluntary service. If you take all our many programs, our volunteers across the country are engaged in, that is the largest number of hours and cash donations to the v. A. Program. Second, sadly, the second Largest Program where our folks are spending the majority of their hours out of 18 programs we track, is military funeral honors. Assisting the internment of roughly the 1,700 to 1,800 of our veterans daily. Back in 2000 there was a congressional Unfunded Mandate to give every veteran a military funeral. They arent able to do that with the two uniformed active service personnel. So they have been augmented by v. S. O. s over the country by the ap3 program. Amvets was born out of world war ii. There were about independent veteran Service Organizations coming back from world war ii and it pointed in 1944, about nine went to kansas city, missouri, when they left amvets was born. American veterans of world war ii. In 1946, amvets petitioned to congress to actually get a charter that. Was signed by harry truman in july of 1947. We have not looked back since then in temples our add vow can advocacy on behalf of veterans. Our Largest Program we deliver in terms of services to our veterans is our Service Officer corps. Roughly 55 across the country. Last year, 2013, they settled over 63,000 claims. By the v. A. s cal clue lations, fiscal year 2013, that totaled 1. 4 billion. All free. Service that is we provide. The unique thing about amvets, is, one, thats eligibility for membership, its put the hewn form on, raise the hand, take the oath. From the original charter its been amended over the years several times so that, again, eligibility for membership is simply to have served your country in any branch, any time, including the guard and reserve. With that, however, you do not have to be a member of amvets to receive all of the services which are free to the families and veterans. In the material thats on the table, i think hopefully every brochure, ot a before i focus on a couple of highlights, some National Programs, the information thats available on the back is our 2014 legislative priorities. Second to our National Service officers, we have legislative office that is monitoring any laws and introducing working with representatives to introduce laws that are affect the active military as well as our veterans. Work regularly with the House Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and give testimony as an opportunity provides. On that card theres two or three of the 10 issues that im sure will resonate with your membership, and thats the vadod health care Mental Health issues, women veterans, as well as the veterans treatment courts which at the reception last evening i talked to several people that indicated one of the many things the local chapters were doing was supporting that. Another card is on the legislative action that we attempted to introduce and did introduce. It was sponsored by representative kilmer out of washington and its the veterans and Service MembersEmployment Rights and housing act of 2013. The short story kind of summary of what we are recommending in this bill thats now been kicked down the road and in committees, but its to acknowledge the tremendous sacrifices of our veterans and allow them to enjoy the same legally mandated nondiscriminatory access to housing and employment and training opportunities as other deserving individuals. We simply dont want to introduce another nondiscrimination law. We want to insert veterans on the list of those minorities. Believe it or not theres only 7 of the u. S. Populace served in the military. Currently its only 1 . We think that qualifies as a minority. The other card is on a warrior transition workshop which ill round out some comments highlighting that. And in supporting that theres an evaluation of those workshops available there. And the last piece thats back there is our Service Officers directory. We do not have Service Officer in every state. A few of the more dense, we have several. But amvets is organized in officially 40 states where we have a presence. We have members in all states that the four states and territories. But we in essence through the Virtual World reach out and provide programs even in those states where we are not officially organized. The list of n. S. O. s please also take that. In the brochure that was passed around that kind of highlights the three National Programs that i want to just spend my remaining minutes talking about. Its basically three programs that are coordinated on the national throfle speak to our pofede9 11 veterans, as well as veterans from previous wars struggling with reintegration and stressers. The first program, as i open this up im prompted to see the orange block which i should have mentioned up front. Ffl 2008 the previous nominee might fitzpatrick signed a memorandum of understanding that said where we have local am vets post presence andlogical chapters and local chapters we ought to look for opportunities to serve each other and veterans. I know i have been on a few of the calls we have shared so we can make that a more dynamic m. O. U. And bring it to life. The three National Programs healing heroes, warrior transition workshops, and Career Centers. A three legged stool. The healing heroes is a program we have given out over 1 million. Its a program that helps keep the Families Together in those 50,000plus warriors that have been wounded. Many of them severely. And they are in hospitals, v. A. Polytrauma sites, locations, d. O. D. Facilities and they are separated fra families. Sadly there are not enough fisher houses yet. There is an issue of bureaucracy when a spouse sees a returning spouse coming back and they are a double or triple amputees and the spouse cant handle it and they want to start initially right away separation papers. Mom and dad would like to go, brothers and sisters, d. O. D. Doesnt pay for that since thats in that bureaucracy. Healing heroes provides basically the travel age lodgeling and childcare to allow those families to get together and be together bedside. The warrior transition workshop, we are really excited. Its been a program we have been working and struggling, pushing the wet noodle uphill for four or five years. But we are really pleased. What it is is a weekend deboot camp for those suffering from stress issues. Those that are reluctant to selfidentify or being seen by a psychiatrist is going to hurt their rank, hurt their job opportunity. So its a selfidentified laid back weekend. Early on its interesting we realized we needed to have major outcofments the whole intent is develop a betatype program thats making a difference helping our veterans in a reintegration. Coping, how to deal with those things thats been a part of in mup tillp deployments that we have to have major outcomes. We work very hard on that. Its interesting those of you who read all that incoming, the i. O. M. , institute of medicine, published a report in june, charged by the d. O. D. And detcht Veterans Affairs to say what have we been doing with 3. 5 billion in recent years . Whats worked . What hasnt in helping ptsd . Sadly there arent any measurable outcofments we are fortunate we have that report shows some from a very small study we were fortunate to have the National Institutes of health provide a survey known as the acronym is promise, and it was evaluated by the American Institute of research and what we found in veterans going into the weekend, testing, going out 30 days and 90 days, there has been statistically significant improvement in such things as social isolation, anger, anxiety. We are really quite pleased with that. The ph. D. S recommended a larger study to substaniate the generalizibility in larger groups. For that we need 400 and we are going to pursue that aggressively. Hopefully well knock on the door of the v. A. And d. O. D. With those results. I would just like to leave you the i talked about three National Programs. Career centers. The last piece. They got those stress issues under control. Family kind of reorganized. We are successful to be a seal of distinction recipient of the call of duty endowment, and they raised so much money with the games they decided to give back to the community and military. And so we are one of the grantees. We have stood up 16 Career Centers across the country and have about 1,000 veterans in that database and base placed about 250 in the last 18 months. We do that with many of the same things that dye ann mentioned. Everything from diane mentioned. Everything from resume assessment, reentering skills, and education if they needed it post9 11ed all their g. I. Bill. Im probably over my time, is hat you heard me go on with an extensive overview in 10 or 12 minutes. The reality is back to that m. O. U. , if you have a local chapter, it so happens its close to one of our 1,100 some local posts, particularly if its close to one of those 350 or 400 that have a post facility, those two can come together and network and provide a Little Service thats a gap in that community. We dont even know that. But collectively on the back of this brochure we try to track that and not counting what we have spent with these National Programs, in 2013 the figure stands at 28 million that our local posts by the independent sector formula and cash have provided those kind of services. You take away from here are fortunate enough, help you figure out, if you are close to the units, the collaboration locally is happening in spite of people up here. Thats a good thing. Thank you very much. [applause] well hear from christina about the code of support foundation. Please. Hi, everybody. I have a couple questions for the audience, actually, before we start. The first one can someone pass these out . Thats the first question. And the second question, how many people in here have served . How many people in here are Family Members . Ok. And how many people feel both really encouraged by all these resources and a little overwhelmed at the same time . Yeah. Its not you. Its