Valour-IT

Imagine, just imagine, for one moment, Oh Best Beloved, what it would be like to lose the ordinary use of your hands.

Trust me on this one: it sucks. I, at least, still have some use of my hands, although this blog comes to you courtesy of what is known as ‘adaptive technology,’ which I use to get it written.

Many of our military personnel serving overseas have come home with injuries that make it impossible to use their hands for tasks the ordinary web surfer doesn’t give a second thought to doing. Web surfing? Try that when you can’t use a keyboard or a mouse. E-mail? Internet shopping? Blogging? How about watching a DVD – when you can’t hit the keyboard buttons that start it playing?

Enter Valour-IT. Valour-IT, a non-profit volunteer organization, has a solution. They provide laptops with adaptive software to American military personnel who were wounded while fighting overseas.

The cost to the injured soldier or Marine? Zero. Nadda. Nothing. The cost to the taxpayer? Zero. Nadda. Nothing.

Once a year, Valour-IT asks for donations to help cover the costs of providing these laptops. One hundred percent of donations – every single penny raised – goes directly to the purchase and shipment of laptops for severely wounded service members. No skimming. No fat salaries for administration. And it’s all made possible by the hard work of dedicated volunteers who saw a need, stepped up to the plate, and found a way to fill it.

Right now, Valour-IT provides 100 new laptops a month through this program, and the need continues.

Can you help?

Click here to donate on-line via PayPal (you can use a major credit card even if you don’t have a PayPal account). You’ll be taken to “Chaotic Synaptic Activity,” the site for the Valour-IT Navy fund-raising team that I’m supporting.

Every dollar counts. Skip a latte today, or delay downloading a handful of MP3s from iTunes, and you’ll have $5 right there that you can give.

And what will you have done?

You’ll have helped a wounded warrior regain the freedom to read a book, email friends, surf the web, or even take college courses.

It’s the least we can do.