Wounded Warriors on St. John

[Tracy in WI]

While on island last night, I spoke with a very nice man who is helping out the Wounded Warriors program. There is a group of about ten wounded troops heading to St. John within the next few weeks along with their spouses.

From what I understand, they have exceeded their budget for this trip and some local people are helping to generate donations of money as well as goods/services.

This is a great organization and these men and women deserve so much support. I am trying to find out how to donate to the group heading to St. John. If I find out anything specific I will post it here. Otherwise, Wounded Warriors has a website with a link to make donations.

[Marcia (Mrs. Pete)]

Didn't the Beach Bar doing something last year, like a big cook out to raise funds for them or am I misremembering? Very worthy cause!

[lprof]

Tracy, looks like the SUDS group is heading to the USVI around December 2... perhaps this is the group you were hearing about....
http://www.sudsdiving.org/

If interested, here are...
a few links to the 2009 SUDS (Soldiers Undertaking Disabled Scuba, a Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project) visit to St John:

article about the ABC News coverage (underwater photos by St John's own Steve Simonsen!)
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0905/ ... lands.html

http://www.on-stjohn.com/2009/03/06/pig ... the-beach/

http://www.sudsdiving.org/gallery2/main ... itemId=513

[flip-flop]

Gromit & I do a annual girls trip to the beach (local not STJ) every May and this year had the pleasure of sharing our B&B with several couples from this program.

It was obvious to me what a huge difference the WW program makes to these soldiers and their families. I was struck by how very young these guys were.

Such a great thing! Thanks for the info.

[Sadie Sea]

Greetings, I'm so happy to see this great cause made it to the forum. My friends and I are donating a lot of our time this week to help this amazing group out. We are doing two STT boat trips to pick up the veterans on Sunday, organizing a wife/girlfriend only afternoon and recording the trip to hopefully turn into a short movie, we are also creating a paypal account for this specific group of Wounded Warriers. If your interested in volunterring any of your time, skills, food, money, you can call Sgt Lang 352-467-1957.
many thanks

[Tracy in WI]

Thanks for your reply, Sadie Sea. I heard you would be donating your time. I emailed Wounded Warriors about donating specifically to the St. John trip and haven't heard back.

You are doing an awesome thing and I hope many people will join in and help. Wish I would be on island to volunteer.

Please let us know how it goes.

[Exit Zero]

There is a very informative article about this trip on stthomassource.com - in Cinnamon Bay now.
As a sidebar Moe from Skinny Legs raised over $10K for this group!!

[lprof]

An article in the St John Source provides a follow-up. Thanks to the St John Community for making these soldiers feel so welcome.

http://stjohnsource.com/print/88129

[Tracy in WI]

In addition to that article, there is a group on Facebook called Team River Runner - St John USVI that has more pictures and even a video of their experience.

One of the participants lost an eye in combat and he chose to have his artificial eye outfitted with a purple heart. The picture is on the facebook group page and pretty unique.

As I understand it, there are big plans for next year - as I hear more, I will keep everyone posted!

[inuny]

Does anyone know who exactly to contact about donating time at my villa to one of the vets' programs? I know about river runners, but there are several websites for wounded warriors.