Project Rub-a-Dub-Dub

The idea for "project Rub-a-dub-dub" came from something my Las Vegas VA Contact Katherine said in one of our meetings, so I have tried to expand upon her idea and incorporate some of the already exisiting SA programs. Katherine said and I quote" these homeless guys are so grateful for anything they are given even a bottle of water is a big deal" I agree with Katherine, water will be an important part of Rub-a-dub-dub, especially in our 120 degree summer days. However the other items we have decided to include will also be useful and helpful to the veterans.

The Team and I have set a D-day of April 30th for the first recipents of "project Rub-a dub-dub" however our general feeling is that this project should be ongoing as we have so many homelss vets to help. By the way this project is aimed at homeless vets but if it takes off we may expand it to vets who are struggling financially also.

The basic premise of Project rub-a dub-dub is to provide homeless vets with the basic supplies to keep clean, have a little something to eat, give them hope and most of all let them know their sacrifices will never be forgotten.

To do this the VA team has come up with this project outline.

We propose to involve the community in this project in as many ways as possible so our plan is to provide the homless vet with a pack of things (listed below) that they may find useful and that we hope will let the Nevada vets know that they have support.

The Pack we are hoping will be some sort of back pack.

These back packs we are hoping to get donated by Children in the school district, sort of a way to recycle back packs they are no longer using. They do not have to be new but in good condition.

Blankets of Hope - this is our biggest item in the bags, I have posted in the sewwing forums asking for donations but we are also asking girlscouts, churchs and other veterans groups to help donate the materials and to help make them.

Gift cards- We're planning to sit outside local grocery stores with flyers and request items like $5 gift card to fast food restaurants like McDonalds, TacoBell and Jack in the box And also write to these plus other companies for donations such as Dunkin Donuts

Personal Hygiene Packs- This is to be the main focus of the pack. Items to be included are combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, soap, shampoo, wet wipes, lotion, sunscreen and chapstick, washcloths (possibly a small towel), shaving kits for men and famale products for women. Al items to be trail sized. Oral Hygiene products we are asking dentist offices to provide. Other items to be collected in tradional donation drives.

Clothing - T-shirts, underwear, socks. Items to be included in each pack. Items to be donated from local church groups, veterans groups and from donation drives.

Food stuffs- Bottled water, crystal lite, ceral bars and other no cook easy open foods. The idea behind this os to give homeless vets a healthy snack that they can eat when they might not have anything else and as an alternative to fast food, whoch is neither healthy or nutricious.

Pet Products-[color=][/color] This item is still under review however as all the VA CTL's are huge dog lovers we felt it had to be addressed. many homeless vets ahve companion animals, especially dogs so we thought we might ask our respective vet clinics if they would donate a couple cases of canned dog food to provide to these homess vets with dogs.

Cards of support- This is the final item we have discussed adding to the pack. We felt it was important to include a card letting these vets know that they have support and that their sacrifices have not been forgotten, however it can also be used as a good tools for sponorship. We discussed this evening that by including a card a fmily or individual could donate monetary funds to this project to cover the cost of putting this pack together and could simply signt he card from the Jones family for example. or from our insurance companies. We plan to target companies we work for for monetary help, especially Prudential for who I am a Realtor and all the mortgage companies I work with.

Other ideas-

Traditionally these projects have items donated from individuals at venues like outside the local grocery store but the team feels that this project would be better co-ordinated working directly with companies, while acknowledging that someof these types of fundraisers will still need to be done. The biggest partnership we hope will come from Prudential, as I am one of their Realtors but also because simply with 1200 Prudential agents in the valley and 6 offices we have the perfect place for individuals to drop off items or being to a Prudential Open house for the agent to bring back to their respective office. I am currently working with my company to get an interivew with the CEO, who works out of my office.

We also felt that by asking dentists, vets, chruches and boys and girls clubs to help with this project we could raise awareness in our local communities of the veterans needs and inspire more people to sign up and become VA Angels.

In addition to these ideas we have decided to implement money raising ideas such as loyalty cards for grocery stores such as Albertson's who give non profit groups like us a pack with 100 cards that when swiped will donate a portion of the monies spent to a fund like the VA team that we in turn would send to SA.

Potential Problems- The one place in our entire plan that has in our opinon the biggest weakness is the Blankets of Hope, mostly because the blankets are fairly expensive to make (Around $10) we really need to figure out if we could get support from angels accross the country to help us make the amount of balankets that we would require as because of the size of this project, expecting them to all be donated from Nevada ( for this year at least) would be extreamly difficult.

The size of this project is also difficult but we have set a goal of at least 5,000 but not to exceed 10,000 of these packs to be donated to homeless Nevada Veterans this year, this first ones being donated at the Las Vegas Stand down on April 30th 2008, after that we plan to distribute them through the VA and the CBOC with another big push at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is our goal that this project put the NV VA team in the spotlight and increase our overall numbers for the VA team along with Soldiers Angels.

Please let me know if there is anything you think we can improve upon and if you have any suggestions. The current plan is to lauch this project tomorrow on forums with the NV VA team newsletter to be mailed out this week alerting all NV angels of the project even those not on forums. Donation letters will be mailed out early next week.

Thank you for your help, support and guidance it's appreciated more than you know.

Lou and the Nevada VA Team