Wounded Warrior Project™ Announces Grant Recipients
Jacksonville, FL (June 1, 2012) – Wounded Warrior Project (WWP), whose mission is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors, today announced $1.2 million in grants to organizations also serving injured service members of this generation and their families.
“Wounded Warrior Project’s vision is to foster the most successful and well-adjusted generation of injured service members in our nation’s history,” said Steve Nardizzi, executive director, WWP. “As part of that vision, we want to create a strong network of community resources and encourage collaboration with other organizations supporting these heroes and their families.”
Earlier this year, WWP requested applications from organizations that seek to enhance the lives of post 9-11 wounded veterans through programmatic activities aimed at improving mental health and wellness, exposing warriors to new opportunities for physical fitness and activity, connecting wounded veterans with their peers, and enhancing economic empowerment and independence among wounded veterans – all in an effort to help foster healthy readjustment to civilian life.
Interested organizations completed a letter of interest and were subsequently invited to submit a full application and those receiving funds were chosen based on shared mission, core values, and focus in WWP’s four core programmatic areas: mind, body, economic empowerment, and engagement.
It is estimated over 48,000 servicemen and women have been physically injured in recent military conflicts, another 320,000 have experienced a traumatic brain injury while on deployment, and as many as 400,000 additional service members live with the invisible wounds of war including combat-related stress, major depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“In an effort to expand the opportunities available to these wounded heroes and inch one step closer to supporting all those in need, we offered our support to groups with expertise in areas like adaptive sports, music therapy, transcendental meditation, spinal cord injury, and other areas we believe will provide tremendous benefit to these wounded veterans,” Nardizzi said.
For more information, and a full list of the grant recipients, please visit www.woundedwarriorproject.org/grants/grantrecipients.aspx.
About Wounded Warrior Project™
The mission of Wounded Warrior Project™ is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors. WWP’s purpose is to raise awareness and enlist the public’s aid for the needs of injured service members, to help injured servicemen and women aid and assist each other, and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet their needs. WWP is a national, nonpartisan organization headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. To get involved and learn more, visit woundedwarriorproject.org.