| August 2009 | Archives |
| Clean Water to Najaf, Website Redesign, LGBTQ Veteran Retreats, Staff News, Support Mehadi! |
| Please consider a donation to the Mehadi Foundation online or via check to support our efforts listed below. |
| A Letter from our Founder Greetings Friends! I actually heard someone say the other day, “Americans don’t really want to hear about the problems in Iraq and they’re already forgetting about the vets from this war that’s still going on.” My heart just sank. Please, please help me prove them wrong by forwarding this to ten friends and asking them to join our mailing list. We are still a country that cares! Recent Successful Projects It’s been several months since we sent out a newsletter to our supporters but that doesn’t mean we’ve not been busy. Since you last heard from us, we awarded three scholarships to clean and sober Iraq (and/or Afghanistan) vets who had struggled with addiction, we partnered with another organization to get one hundred specially designed wheelchairs into Iraq to be distributed to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them and we put a water filter into a school in Najaf so that the students can now have clean water to drink as they learn! Small efforts make a big difference. Now we’re ready to double our efforts and do even more in the coming year! Read more about our efforts on our Projects page. LGBTQ Veteran Retreats/Website Redesign Our current initiative and focus is to offer four peer-support training retreat weekends for LGBT veterans in the next twelve months. Comprehensive information is availabe on the LGBTQ Veterans page. Of course as you probably know, the Mehadi Foundation is not specifically an LGBT organization. Our intention is to help all veterans regardless of how they identify. It has become clear, however, that there is a very special need for peer-support among this community of vets and we intend to provide it. As you’ll see on the website, part of our retreat weekends is teaching vets how to use activism and involvement in philanthropic activites as healing tools. In ways that make sense to the individual veteran, we’ll show them how they can get involved in causes that are particularly important to them. Out of this training, many vets will want to be further involved with Mehadi's other misions. So, you see when you support our efforts to help vets, you’re helping with the other components of our mission as well! The average cost per vet is $1000 for a four-day retreat. The veteran pays nothing. We cover airfare, lodging, food… everything! Our servicemembers deserve it! Our goal is to have between thirty and sixty vets attend each retreat. Our fundraising goal for this effort is about $240,000. By some standards this is a large figure, to some people (especially those who profit from war) it’s a drop in the bucket. BUT I believe the Mehadi Foundation has the BEST support team in the world and I know we will meet our goal. No gift is too small. Even skipping a couple fancy coffee drinks this week and sending that money to the Mehadi Foundation moves us closer to our goal! Staff News Until now, our newsletter has been written by board member Adam Nelson and we thank him for the great job he’s done. This week Adam starts medical school at The University of Utah and we certainly wish him well. We can’t wait to see how the future Doctor Nelson will use his MD to help the foundation! Adam will continue on as a board member but the newsletters will come from me and from our other awesome board members and staff. Perhaps the biggest news to report is that Iraq veteran Patrick English has recently graduated from Western Washington University and has come to work for the foundation full-time. I first met Patrick when he attended one of the retreats I led a couple of years back. His passion for helping his fellow veterans and for continuing to try to do good for the Iraqis is inspiring. I hope you all will drop him an email at mehadifoundation@gmail.com and give him a hardy “welcome aboard!” If your email box gets as full as mine, I know you don’t have time to read a longer letter from me so I’ll close for now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do to help us help the vets and the Iraqis. Every time I start to feel discouraged as we march forward in our daunting (but not impossible) mission, I remember you, all our faithful supporters and I’m able to keep going. Many, many blessings to each and every one of you. Semper Fidelis, Jeff Key Founder, The Mehadi Foundation |
