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Last weekend was the 2007 Soldiers' Angels Conference, and the highlight of the event for Angels was a party at the Brooke Army Medical Center's (BAMC's) Fisher Houses in which 78 Valour-IT laptops were distributed to wounded Soldiers and Marines. This brings Valour-IT's total laptop distributions to over 1200 in two years, and an additional 22 laptops are on standby at BAMC.
Valour-IT was able to distribute the 78 laptops at once thanks to a $150,000 grant [warning, PDF file] from the San Antonio Area Foundation (SAAF), which is by far the largest donation Valour-IT has ever received. The money must be used exclusively in Texas, but that will free up other donations to be applied to locations around the country. SAAF has five million dollars to distribute and this was the first round of grants. Valour-IT received the largest grant of this round (about $80,000 of it remains at this time).
In related news, Circuit City has been working with Valour-IT for some time now, helping us to stretch our donated bucks. They negotiate with their major suppliers to get the best dealer incentives and bulk rates available at any given time and pass that savings directly on to us. This has enabled Valour-IT to distribute relatively high-end laptops to deserving veterans for under $600 each. So, representatives from Circuit City were on-hand at the party to coordinate distribution, and even set up decorations beforehand.
It was quite an impressive sight to see so many laptop boxes stacked up together, and so very gratifying to watch wounded soldiers pulling up in their wheelchairs with smiles on their faces and computer boxes in their laps. At BAMC, Valour-IT is blessed to work hand-in-glove with hospital caseworkers who identify a patient's need for a laptop and refer the info to us. This means that patients are less likely to "fall through the cracks," and are usually quickly identified if they are in need. In fact, the caseworkers themselves distributed the laptops.
Valour-IT is another result of average folks banding together to make a difference, getting beyond petty politics and government bureacracy to get something done and do it right.
Thank you Fuzzybear for heading up this project and making it what it is today. Valour-IT has come a long way in the two short years it's been formed and you are a big part of that success.
