Our Purpose
Our purpose is to help Veterans and their families take the actions they need to get to their best life after military service. We do this via:
- Physical and online outreach.
- This website, with detailed information on over ninety issues, hundreds of videos, and links to thousands of local resources. We are the most in-depth source of information on the help available to Veterans.
- Our Know A Vet? Life newsletter, with well-researched articles from the VA and other sources on topics that better the lives of post-9/11 Veterans and their families, as well as senior Veterans and surviving spouses.
- Personal help through our volunteer “Champions” via email, social media and phone calls for anyone who asks for personal help in sorting out their issues and options.
Our Champion Program
Picture a combat Veteran returning home after three, four or five deployments and trying to re-integrate into a civilian life that is no longer comfortable for him/her. He or she may have no job, no income, have PTSD, and may not know where or how to connect with people (even family and old friends) who have no idea who they are anymore and what they have had to do and see for them!
The VA is wonderful, once you get through, which may take months. In the meantime, even after the VA and Vet Centers start to help, you have real-life survival issues.
That’s why we created a Self Help page, so that you can click on the issues you are facing and immediately find out if there is help through the VA, as well as through the community and private help, a lot of it for free.
Most importantly, if a Veteran is overwhelmed by all the options and how to get started, we provide a volunteer Champion to help them get to their best life faster and easier than they can on their own, whether that be in person, on the phone or online.
Champions help with everything from listening to your needs/goals, to hearing what is holding you back, whether that is a need for child care, transportation, housing, job training, job placement with a Veteran-friendly employer, an addiction or pain, or any of the 90+ topics under Self Help.
Our Champions are here for you. Click here to request one!
Our Outreach
Our initial efforts are in outreach, to locate the Veterans who are either not in the VA system or who have not maximized what they are receiving. We do this with a multi-pronged approach that no one else is using. It includes working with schools, employers, the general public, governments, organizations and places Veterans and their families and friends might frequent.
Our ground team gets our messages to shelters, stores, houses of worship, etc., developing relationships along the way. In our first years, our corporate team has developed relationships with:
- BAE
- Goodwill
- Martha’s Kitchen
- Milpitas Veteran’s Commission
- Mission College Veterans center
- NPower
- San Jose State University Veterans center
- San Jose Vet Center
- Santa Clara County Veteran’s Commission
- Santa Clara Water Commission
- United Veterans Council
- Vietnam Veterans of America
- Work2Future
- ZipRecruiters
- And many others
