We Love Our NJ Community Volunteers for Military Veterans

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We Love Our NJ Community Volunteers for Military Veterans

3 Reasons Our NJ Community Volunteers are the Best

People often say, “It’s hard to walk-the-walk.” Our society teaches us that life is all about me, that more is better than less, and caving into desires and wants is the right pathway to take. Yet, we forget about the most critical part of life – taking care of our neighbors, picking them up in their time of need, and loving them as you would yourself.

We’ll be the first to tell you that we too have made decisions based on emotions, an unfortunate default setting, to say the least. None of us are perfect, but we must be accountable, show up, and support our neighbors in need, especially our military veterans.

At Project Help, we’ve seen numerous NJ community volunteers walk through our doors to answer the call of duty to help veterans in need. There are not enough words to describe how grateful and amazed we are for the dedication, time, and compassion you’ve given of yourself. Volunteering is about giving. Without your support, none of the work we do is possible. Many of you have generously helped provide military veterans with life-changing financial support and resources when they needed it most.

Below are three reasons why NJ community volunteers like YOU are the best in Sussex County and the nation.

Make a Difference

Volunteers like YOU make a difference. Every time you volunteer for Project Help, we have a chance to make the world a better place for military veterans who so desperately need our help.

Here are some staggering statistics for you to comprehend:

  • Nearly 20% of military veterans who served in Afghanistan or Iraq suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
  • According to the National Center for PTSD, almost one in every three vets who seek treatment for substance use disorders have PTSD. Additionally, two out of every ten vets with PTSD also have substance abuse disorders.
  • 41% of veterans that served since September 2001 – known as Gulf War-era II veterans – have a service-connected disability, compared to 25% of all military veterans.
  • Veteran suicide is 1.5 times higher than nonveteran adults
  • The pandemic increased veteran isolation and heightened the risk factor for veteran suicides.

The problem doesn’t stop there. Veterans often struggle to find employment and have difficulty locating jobs even when national jobless rates decrease. This leaves them unable to pay for an electric bill, gas for their vehicle, and food for their families. As a result, veterans are forced into homelessness, resulting in 40,000+ living on the streets, in cars, under bridges, in shelters, or in transitional housing. This is a real, national disgrace to our military veterans who gave their all to defend our freedoms and liberties.

These vets need volunteers and donors like you to help in their time of need. Even if you feel like you have no qualified skills to lend a helping hand, please consider. You do have something to offer. We’re often spread thin and can’t reach out to as many vets as we wish. But with you by our side, there is always something to help with, whether it’s paying for their grocery bill or helping set up Valentine’s Day care packages for the VA Temporary Housing Unit.

Give Back Selflessly

In life, you rarely meet a person so selfless and devoted to step up to the plate and help a veteran in need. But when you do, their actions do not go unnoticed. The time and energy given from NJ community volunteers to further Project Help’s mission, leaves a lasting effect on many lives – especially on our nation’s heroes and their families.

We recently held our Annual Christmas Toy Drive, where our donors and volunteers stepped up to the plate big – right in time for the holiday celebrations. With the help of the IBEW Local 102 (who donated 500 toys), The Boy Scouts, Sussex County Employees (thank you, Karen Reinertsen), and Sheet Metal Workers (SMART), we collected close to 700 toys. We filled the Project Help Mobile Closet-turned-Santa Bus from front-to-back, floor-to-ceiling. You wouldn’t believe your eyes by how many toys we had in there!

And the giving kept coming. These generous individuals dedicated their time and helped organize the toys for deserving veteran families to come and grab. Not only did they warm the hearts of veteran moms and dads as they picked out toys for their children, but they also became Santa Claus for veteran children on Christmas morning – how magical is that?

Thank you for your selfless generosity and dedication to NJ’s military veterans. With your help, we were able to fill veteran homes with joy for a bright holiday season!

Backbone of Project Help

Even though you aren’t always in the spotlight, you are the backbone of each and every event at Project Help. Your ability to work willingly together for the betterment of military veterans and our community speaks volumes. Whether it’s organizing toys for our Annual Christmas Toy Drive, building a bicycle for a veteran family, or supporting our Project Help Mobile Bus reveal (thanks American Legion Riders of NJ), you’ve shown the traits of a dedicated volunteer.

It’s hard to come up with the right words to describe how much your support means. Thank you for volunteering at Project Help – we hope to work with you again very soon!

Will you step up and be a patriot? Donate and become a NJ Community Volunteer NOW! Sussex County military veterans are counting on you.