Promote DAV Scholarships to young volunteers near you

As the national voluntary services director, one of the highlights is being able to publicly recognize DAV volunteers.

Often, this is through milestone gifts we send to people when they reach a certain number of hours or drive so many miles for our Transportation Network. I try to thank volunteers I interact with and remind them how impactful their work is. And platforms like this newsletter allow me to highlight the good work you all do.

I also have the privilege of standing on the national stage of our annual convention to recognize those who go above and beyond. Last month in Orlando, Florida, I helped present a $30,000 check to our top DAV Scholarship recipient, Noah Omura.

Noah is an impressive young man. The volunteer seed was planted in him when he was 8 after attending a veterans charity ride in Columbia, South Carolina. Then, in middle school, he started volunteering for the Columbia VA Health Care System.

“What once felt like an intimidating maze of hallways has become a place I proudly call home,” he said at convention. “A place where I grew up, found my voice and discovered my purpose.”

Noah spent his time there working in the hospital’s welcome center, with veterans at the Community Living Center, and mentoring other student volunteers.

He also started a program called Mats for Vets, recycling plastic grocery bags by weaving them into sleeping mats for veterans experiencing homelessness. While this project got him an invitation to present at a national TEDx Veterans Affairs event, he said it also allowed him to better understand that the needs of the veterans he was serving extended beyond the material. Noah found they were looking for connection, people to show up and a reminder that help was a phone call away. The mats he handed out all came with a dog tag that listed the Veterans Crisis Line and the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans.

Noah’s using his scholarship money to help pay for tuition at the University of South Carolina Honors College where he’s a freshman studying biology. He hopes to become a doctor and return to the VA to continue serving veterans in that capacity.

Like I said, he’s impressive.

What’s encouraging to me is that there are many more young people like Noah across our country who also volunteer for veterans. We hand out 15 scholarships each year, totaling $140,000. While the application essays and nominations we read make it really hard to pick the winners—they are all deserving—it’s a great reminder that our future is in good hands.

Every single DAV department and chapter has future leaders like Noah and our other scholarship recipients who live in their area. Have you reached out to them and told them about DAV Scholarships? Have you invited them to volunteer for veterans in their community or with your local VA?

If not, you’re leaving out an incredibly powerful, vibrant, energetic group who’s looking to get involved. I encourage you to find or create opportunities for them to serve veterans. Connect them with your VA Voluntary Services Representative or Deputy. Host a DAV Community Impact Day event and invite them out. Connect with your VA’s Center for Development and Community Engagement chief.

You may be helping encourage and find our next $30,000 scholarship recipient. And they may just learn something, like Noah did, about the service and sacrifice of veterans.

With the fall semester of school underway, now is a great time to promote our scholarships. You can learn more about them at davscholarships.org. Make sure students 21 and younger know about this exciting opportunity.