Wounded Warrior Project Returns to Breezy Point for Weekend of Adaptive Skiing, Surfing and Sailing
Rockaway Point, NY (July 9, 2012) – Wounded Warrior Project™ (WWP), whose mission is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors, heads to the Queens community of Rockaway with over 50 WWP Alumni for the eighth-annual Adaptive Water Sports Festival.
Wounded Warriors will have the opportunity to learn adaptive waterskiing, surfing and other water sports throughout the weekend. A parade on July 12 kicks off the weekend, as WWP Alumni are escorted through streets lined with supporters from Rescue 5 Fire Station in Staten Island and over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, before concluding at a private event hosted by the Belle Harbor Yacht Club in Queens.
“We are honored to return to Rockaway for an event that is one of the highlights of the year to provide a wonderful weekend for these warriors,” said Al Giordano, deputy executive director, Wounded Warrior Project. “The entire community has a great history of honoring servicemen and women and this year promises to uphold that tradition.”
This is the eighth year that WWP has been working with this neighborhood in Queens on this event; and as always, it includes heavy support from the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), the Graybeards, Legends in Valor and a massive volunteer effort. The Rockaway community was one of the hardest hit on Sept. 11, 2001, and ravaged again by the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 just two months later. Yet, the area proved resilient and responded with a surge of empathy, and charitable endeavors that included the founding of the Graybeards, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping those in need.
The four-day event offers Wounded Warriors the opportunity to achieve success in sports which provides the foundation for an active lifestyle, a key focus of the Physical Health & Wellness program at WWP. The Physical Health & Wellness program looks to optimize the physical and psychological well-being of warriors through comprehensive recreation and sports programs, physical health promotion strategies, physical rehabilitation and legislative policy change.
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 to 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 service to meet their needs. WWP is a national, nonpartisan organization headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. To get involved and learn more, visit woundedwarriorproject.org.