Fall Valour-IT fundraiser is underway

25 November update: Bumped as a reminder; please give generously if you can. - bc

Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Technology supplied includes:

• Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.
  
• Wii Video Game Systems - Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions.
• Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to TBI and severe PTSD.

Please donate to Project Valour-IT during the Thanksgiving fundraiser; click the link below or in the sidebar.



Related:

• Valour-IT page at Soldiers' Angels
• Valour-IT blog

Valour-IT: Preliminary Totals

The Valour-IT fall fundraiser is over. Thanks to all who contributed.

How did we do?

This hasn't been the easiest fundraiser Valour-IT has had, but the preliminary numbers are very encouraging.

We're still awaiting check totals, but here is what we have so far.... As of midnight [November 13] Pacific Time, these were the standings...

Army: $53,023.00*
Marines: $39,673.00
Air Force: $25,638.34
Navy/CG: $20,081.75

Adding in the $29,954.82 in non-team donations--processed through Valour-IT's regular donation page--swells the preliminary total to $168,370.91!!

As the totals lagged this year, I scaled back my hopes to at least break $100,000. But it sounds like I was too low by half--last year we raised nearly $30,000 dollars in donations by check, so with similar results this year we can hope to break $200,000.

Valour-IT Blog: Preliminary Totals and Team Standings

Valour-IT: One more day

As I sit down to write, it's the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month here in the Eastern Standard time zone... the 89th anniversary of the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany in 1918, effectively ending World War I.

"Armistice Day," of course, became "Veteran's Day" (which we'll observe officially tomorrow) after World War II.

And the Valour-IT fundraising drive is being extended just one more day - until midnight on Monday, November 12.

For whatever reasons - and I think there are many, including concern about the economy - the fundraiser for Valour IT this year is falling far short of its goals.

If you've given this year, please allow me to express my appreciation and thanks, on behalf of the wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who will receive laptops fitted with adaptive gear.

If you haven't given this year - for whatever reason - and it is within your ability to do so, would you please consider the most generous gift you can afford, and click "Make a Donation" in the upper right-hand corner of this blog?

Thanks.

Valour-IT: Gifts for donors

Beginning today, Soldiers' Angels is offering the following gift to donors who give more than $25 to Valour-IT through the team competition. Donors must use a team button to receive a coin.


This military-style challenge coin is available marked for each of the team service branches (Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine). Donors will automatically receive the coin appropriate to their team donation.

Valour-IT: Gifts for donors

Valour-IT: Time to step it up

I call your attention once again to the fundraising campaign for Valour-IT, a project that outfits wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines with voice-activated laptops.

Team Navy is currently in third place, but most importantly, all of the teams are far short of the individual $60,000 goals that were set after last year's success. (The fundraiser runs through next Sunday, and as with all fundraisers, most of the money comes in at the end.)

Enrevanche has several hundred regular readers (via RSS and direct visits) and a few thousand occasional droppers-by.

Perhaps you think that what you're able to give won't make a difference...

Well, if everyone who regularly reads enrevanche gave $5, we could buy at least a couple of new laptops for the troops all by ourselves.

If you don't like donating online, you can mail a check here:

Soldiers' Angels
Project Valour-IT Fund - NAVY/USCG TEAM
1792 E. Washington Blvd
Pasadena, Ca 91104

We thank you for your consideration and support.

Valour-IT: Voice Activated Laptops For Our Injured Troops

It's time again for the Project Valour-IT fundraiser:

Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, helps provide voice-controlled and adaptive laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the 'Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field. The experience of MAJ Charles “Chuck” Ziegenfuss, a partner in the project who suffered serious hand wounds while serving in Iraq, illustrates how important these laptops can be to a wounded service member's recovery.

Last year, generous enrevanche readers gave well over a thousand dollars to this very worthy cause.

We're blogging again in support of Team Navy.

For those of you who donated so generously last year, we thank you again for your support, and hope that we can count on you this year as well.

For those of you who weren't reading enrevanche last year, or who weren't in a position to donate, please consider Project Valour-IT in your charitable giving this year.

The fall fundraiser runs through November 11, and if you'd like to keep track of how we're doing, the widget in the upper right hand corner of the blog is keeping score.

Where's MEGEN?

When Team Navy won the friendly ValOUR-IT competition last fall (enrevanche readers helped!) and raised a lot of money to buy voice-activated notebook computers for injured American servicemen and women, a "golden laptop" trophy was created to commemorate the occasion... MEGEN, or "Most Exalted Golden Notebook."

MEGEN has certainly been getting around ever since (check out the posts over at Chaotic Synaptic Activity... starting with the first one is recommended.)

Part of the fun is a little game we play called "Where's MEGEN?" Here's the Big Apple edition of that game.

Like a lot of tourists, MEGEN recently visited New York City. Here's a picture of MEGEN on vacation in Manhattan:

MEGEN in New York

Well, shoot. You can't really tell too much about where MEGEN is from that photograph.

How about this one?

More context.

Any takers?

Take your best guess and leave a comment... I'll update this post with the answer in a day or two.

---

UPDATE: That didn't take long... NYC expat Scott got it in one.

The answer: Abingdon Square Park in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in front of the Abingdon Doughboy.

Background:

"In 1921, twenty thousand spectators gathered in and around [Abingdon Square Park] to hear former and future Governor Alfred E. Smith present the Abingdon Square Memorial (also known as the Abingdon Doughboy) in memory of local men who fought in World War I. Created by sculptor Philip Martiny, this monument was restored by Parks' monument crew in 1993. The flagstaff was dedicated by the Private Michael J. Lynch Post No. 831 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1933."

The inscription on the monument's base reads:

ERECTED BY POPULAR SUBSCRIPTION TO HONOR THE BRAVE MEN WHO WENT FORTH FROM THIS NEIGHBORHOOD TO JOIN THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE WORLD WAR

In the early years of the 20th century, Greenwich Village (where Abingdon Square Park is located) was *not* the swanky place it is now... it was a working class Irish and Italian neighborhood, and "popular subscription" means that someone collected a hell of a lot of dimes and nickels to get this memorial built.

Couldn't think of a more appropriate place to photograph the Valour-IT prize than by a monument that documents a community remembering its veterans.

Final day of Project Valour-IT blogger fundraiser

Today, Veterans' Day, is the final day of the Valour-IT blogger fundraiser.

Team Navy hit our $45,000 target at approximately 11:30 EST on Friday and at that point many Navy bloggers began giving "fire support" by switching their donation links to the Marine Corps, in honor of the Corps' 231st birthday. (Apparently this worked really well, as the Corps has now pulled ahead in the friendly competition over fundraising numbers! The wonderful thing is that, interservice bragging rights aside--and as a civilian I don't have a dog in this fight anyway--all the money goes directly to providing laptops for injured troops.)

Again, big thanks to all the enrevanche readers who donated money to this very worthy cause. A bunch of wounded veterans with hand and arm injuries are going to have voice-activated laptops to use because of you.

If you haven't given, there's still time:

The enrevanche Valour-IT challenge - CLOSED

(Bumped)

The enrevanche Valour-IT challenge has maxed out. After friend Chap linked to us at Milblogs, a few late donations came in tonight to push our total match to the $500 limit.

Thanks to all! As promised, I've kicked $500 matching funds into the kitty.

No, not the kitty above.
This kitty.

Related posts:

• Valour-IT: Double your donation, limited time only
• Valour-IT in the news
• Project Valour-IT needs your help

Valour-IT: Double your donation, limited time only

---

Update, 9 November 9:45 PM EST:

The enrevanche Valour-IT challenge has maxed out. After friend Chap linked to us at Milblogs, a few late donations came in tonight to push our total match to the $500 limit.

Thanks to all! As promised, I've kicked $500 matching funds into the kitty.

---

The Valour-IT blogger fundraising drive wraps up this Friday, November 10th, the day before Veterans' Day. With four full days to go, the Navy team is not quite halfway to our fundraising target of $45,000 (and the other teams, while doing somewhat better, are also lagging behind.)

enrevanche readers--and these are just the ones I know about, the ones who have reached out to me and told me they've given; I have no way of knowing who has given what to whom, as Soldiers' Angels and PayPal keep that information completely confidential--have given well in excess of a thousand dollars to the fundraising effort, and for that I thank you kindly.

We've had donations ranging from a few bucks to an individual who donated the full cost of a new laptop ($800), and the Team -- and the wounded veterans who will benefit from your donations -- appreciate every last cent.

I know, from volunteer fundraising experience with political campaigns and public radio stations, that a lot of support comes in at the very end.

So let me sweeten the pot a little for you.

If you click the "donate" button in the upper-right sidebar of this blog and make a PayPal donation to Valour-IT between now and noon (EST) Friday, November 10th, I'll match it dollar for dollar, up to a total match of $500.

Just drop me an e-mail that says "I'm an enrevanche reader and I gave $x."

Remember, you have to tell me that you've donated; I have no way of knowing this, because the details of your donation and the fact that you've made one at all are both completely confidential; Soldiers' Angels will list your first name and the state you're from on their leaderboard, and that's it.

If you want to forward me your PayPal receipt, that's fine, but I'm also comfortable doing this on the honor system; however perverse and misguided some of y'all might be :-), my experience of you all during the last few years has indicated that you're an honorable bunch.

If you've been on the fence about giving, or if you feel like what you can afford to give won't make a difference (it will! it will!), here's a chance to double your donation automatically, but it's good for a limited time only. Noon Friday is the deadline.

Let's get cracking. And as we all go off to vote today, let's bear in mind that freedom isn't free.

Valour-IT in the news

The Valour-IT fundraiser makes the Army Times:

A competition is raging among Internet bloggers to see who can raise the most money for voice-activated laptops that will be given to severely disabled service members.

The Veterans Day competition, which is organized by Valour-IT, began Monday. Its goal is to raise $180,000 in 10 days; as of Thursday morning, the total was up to $51,068.

Bloggers compete to raise cash for computer charity (Army Times, 2 Nov 06)

Thanks to all the enrevanche readers who have stepped up to the plate; if you haven't given yet, please consider doing so. Valour-IT provides voice-activated laptops for wounded veterans with severe arm and hand injuries; to donate, or for more information, consult the upper-right-hand corner of this blog's sidebar.

Project Valour-IT needs your help

Project Valour-IT (Voice-Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops) is part of Soldiers' Angels, a volunteer group on an important mission: outfitting severely injured Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines with laptops that can be used with adaptive devices, so that they can communicate with their families and friends via the Internet.

These folks are good at what they do. They've got the cost down for the complete rig to $800 - that'll buy a laptop setup for a wounded vet. But unfortunately, demand for these units is outstripping supply right now, and there's a fund drive on.

Bloggers are teaming up to raise $180,000 to buy laptops for our wounded troops, and we at enrevanche are doing our part.

Although I've never served, and I'm not part of the milblogger community, I have some good friends who are Navy family, and enrevanche, for the duration, has signed on with Team Navy (if they'll have me), as so far there's no team for former defense contractors (which is just as well, as we'd probably absorb all the money in time and materials cost overruns... okay, bad joke.)

In fact, every cent that Valour-IT raises goes to buy equipment; time and services are being donated by some very generous geeks.

If you have a spare $800 (or some multiple of this) to give, that's wonderful: you've just bought a new laptop for a wounded soldier.

Even if you don't, though, surely you've got $20 or $50 or $100 or so that you could contribute to the cause?

You may well have personal misgivings about what's going on in Iraq right now, but I hope you don't have a problem with offering some support and respect and love to a wounded veteran.

There's a donation button at the top right-hand side of your computer screen. Please give generously.

(And if you're a blogger, please join the team here.)

Project Valour-IT (Voice-Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops)

Hat tip: Chapomatic.