Give an Hour Announces Recipients of  

Community Blueprint Network Grants

 

Sixteen Grants, Funded by Walmart,  

Provide Vital Services to Military Families in  

Norfolk, Va., and Fayetteville, N.C. 

 

 

Give an Hour announced 16 recipients of $7,500 Walmart grants in the Norfolk area  of Virginia and in Fayetteville, N.C. These locations are the sites of two demonstration projects administered by Give an Hour for the Community Blueprint Network, a collaborative effort to help communities address the needs of veterans and military families on a local level.

 

The Walmart Foundation committed $144,000 in support of the grant program, which provides funds to the 16 local organizations with the goal of improving the services they deliver to the military and veteran community.

 

Applications were judged on the following: (1) how well they fill a need as outlined in one or more of the eight "Mission Communities" of the Community Blueprint Network: behavioral health, education, employment, financial/legal assistance, family strengths, reintegration, volunteerism, and homelessness; (2) how well they collaborate with other organizations; (3) how they exemplify best practices and how their program could be replicated in other communities; (4) how well they use or encourage volunteers and participation by military family members; and (5) the scope, reach, and sustainability of their program.   

  

Using these criteria, a three-person selection committee chose the following recipients in the Norfolk area: Volunteer Hampton Roads, Old Dominion University Research Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Tidewater Community College, Old Dominion University Business Gateway, Quality of Life Foundation, Wounded Wear, and Good Seed Good Ground. The same committee chose these winners in Fayetteville: Fayetteville Cares, United Way of Cumberland County, Fayetteville State University School of Social Work, Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville Technical Community College, Partnership for Children of Cumberland County, Support Military Spouses, and USO of North Carolina.

 

"We are grateful for the generosity of Walmart for recognizing the importance of harnessing the goodwill of communities in supporting the military families who are left behind when their service members deploy and in supporting the service members as they return home," said Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, founder and president of Give an Hour. "The grants from Walmart will help organizations who are already doing good work to expand their efforts and to help ensure services are available and easily accessible to service personnel, veterans, and families in the Norfolk and Fayetteville communities."  

 

 

"We know one of the most critical needs many of our veterans have is the very support Give an Hour and organizations like them provide everyday--which is why we're so proud to help them expand," said retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Gary Profit, senior director of military programs at Walmart. "We're part of the Hampton Roads community, so we want to do our part to ensure our veterans and their families--our neighbors and friends--have the care they need and deserve."

 

Secondary Trauma and Burnout Evaluation: An Invitation to Contribute

If you are interested in individual or corporate giving, please contact Katherine Wilkins, director of development, at kwilkins@giveanhour.org.

Participants will enhance their understanding about the clinical and community uses of hope, discuss best practices, and identify topics for future research.

Social work is the profession of hope, and this conference will provide an opportunity for social workers from every area of practice to refocus on the ideal that brought them to the profession in the first place. Social workers recognize the resiliency and strengths in others and build on these to help clients and communities prevent crises and solve seemingly intractable problems.

July 22-25, 2012
Marriott Wardman Park
2660 Woodley Road NW, Washington, DC 20008

Barbara Van Dahlen was one of three experts participating in a panel discussion on troops transitioning from war to home at the annual Middle Georgia Luncheon at the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins, Ga. The luncheon is hosted each year by Colleen Nunn, wife of former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn.

This year's event, attended by more than 200 people, was moderated by former CNN president Tom Johnson. The other panelists were retired Army Brigadier General Loree K. Sutton and psychotherapist Laurie Leitch.

 

Give an Hour Providers Have Given Nearly 50,000 Hours in Free Mental Health Services

Give an Hour's Nancy St. Claire  

Promoted to Chief Operating Officer

 

Give an Hour announces the promotion of Nancy St. Claire to Chief Operating Officer. Since August of 2011, she has been GAH's Project Manager for the Community Blueprint Network initiative for Fayetteville, N.C., and Norfolk, Va., a role she will combine with her new position.   

 

Nancy has Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Anthropology with a focus on ethnographic studies.  Her Bachelor of Art's degree is from Indiana University, and her Master's in Science is from Purdue University.    

 

Serving as a civilian cultural advisor, Nancy was embedded with a Brigade Combat Team in Kirkuk, Iraq, for seven months in 2008-2009. While conducting sociocultural fieldwork, she accompanied soldiers on missions "outside the wire," including infantry units, military transition teams, police transition teams, and military police. Through this experience, she gained a profound respect for service members and the sacrifices they make. As a result, she has dedicated her time to giving back to those who serve.  

 

Nancy also earned a Master's in Counseling from the University of Phoenix (Tucson, Ariz., campus) and has 12 years' experience as a Licensed Professional Counselor. She is a Licensed Associate Substance Abuse Counselor and a National Certified Counselor. Her clinical work includes community mental health counseling on the U.S./Mexico border with a focus on PTSD and crisis counseling. She also has extensive experience as an administrator in the behavioral health field. Nancy is married to a combat veteran of the Gulf War, OIF, and OEF. She is a member of Toastmasters International.

 

 

Anika Crone, Founder of
Wellness for Our Warriors,
Benefiting Give an Hour    

 

As editor-in-chief of a high school newspaper in northern Virginia, Anika Crone likes to write. When she and her teacher agreed she should do a story about the soldiers coming home from war, Anika interviewed Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, president and founder of Give an Hour. Anika immediately embraced the mission of Give an Hour and felt she just had to do something so that troops would know they had friends back home. Give an Hour is grateful for the commitment and generosity of this high school senior. Anika shares her personal story as our guest writer for this newsletter and founder of Wellness for Warriors.

 

"I started Wellness for Our Warriors in the hopes of providing Give an Hour with some funding. I came up with the idea this past November. As editor-in-chief of my school magazine, I write the in-depth feature in each issue, and after the war in Iraq ended I decided to write a story for the December issue about the soldiers who were returning home. I pondered which angle to take and came up with the idea of focusing on post-traumatic stress disorders. In doing research, I came across Dr. Van Dahlen and Give an Hour. While interviewing her, I was moved by the stories she had to tell me, as well as those of the soldiers I interviewed who had, in fact, come back from the war and were facing psychological stress and emotional issues like breakups in their homes. I am someone who has also faced stress and learned to deal with anxiety issues in my own lifetime. I could not imagine how pressured and upsetting it would be not to have the resources to receive help for something like post-war anxieties, which were a hundred times greater than what I have experienced.

 

"I wanted to do something to help, and in talking it over with my parents one day I came up with an idea. If I were to make friendship bracelets, something my friends and I had gotten into recently, then I could sell them and donate the profits to Give an Hour. I talked to my friends and they were more than willing to help me make bracelets over the winter break. Once I had about a hundred bracelets I decided it was time to start selling them. On February 4 I set up a table outside McLean's local CVS Pharmacy, displayed the bracelets and information about Give an Hour, and within an hour I had made $104. The people I met were very supportive and enthusiastic about my efforts. I had a conversation with a man who told me that he had had a friend who came back from war and committed suicide due to PTSD, and he thanked me for what I was doing.  

 

"I am tremendously excited to continue this effort. I created a blog online with the domainwww.wellnessforourwarriors.blogspot.com  so that people can track my progress. I hope to make an impact and help Give an Hour because I believe that after all the sacrifices veterans have made for our country, they certainly deserve to receive the kind of psychological counseling that Give an Hour provides. Everyone should have a chance to recover."