Swords to Plowshares, a Call of Duty Endowment Grant Recipient, was Recently Featured on CNN

Michael Blecker, the Executive Director of Swords to Plowshares, was recently interviewed on CNN regarding our current veteran unemployment crisis. Previously awarded a Call of Duty Endowment grant, Swords to Plowshares is a veteran organization dedicated to healing wounds and significantly reducing veteran homelessness and poverty.

This CNN special “Veterans Return to Tough Job Market” highlights how even though veterans have a plethora of valuable and applicable skills for the civilian job market, they are still struggling to convince many employers of it.

The Endowment is proud to support organizations like Swords to Plowshares that are dedicating themselves to bettering the nation’s high veteran unemployment rates.

Trick Out Your Xbox Live Avatar and Help Real Warriors

Activision Blizzard announced that proceeds from the sale of Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 avatars on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® between December 2 and December 16 will be donated to the Call of Duty Endowment.

Custom avatars let gamers personalize their online profiles with their favorite elements from Modern Warfare 3.  More than 30 items for the game are already available in the Avatar Marketplace, and In honor of the franchise’s continuing partnership with the Endowment, two additional avatars—American Special Forces and Special Ops Juggernaut—are now available.

The most recent announcement from Activision Blizzard comes on the heels of a recent $3 million dollar donation and an announcement that proceeds from Modern Warfare 3’s epic soundtrack will also go toward the Call of Duty Endowment as well.

Every dollar of these funds will be used to help our veterans find jobs and make a successful transition to civilian life.  We are excited for every opportunity that lets us partner with the Modern Warfare fans out there.

New Tool for Vets – The Virtual Job Fair

The job fair is perhaps the central event for many job seekers and employers.  They provide employers access to a large field of potential applicants, and allow those looking for work to explore multiple options and careers.  But in today’s tough economic climate, job fairs can sometimes come with logistical challenges.  Travel, parking, crowds and others issues can be frustrating, and may even create barriers to entry for some. 

One solution many employers have found, going online.  Online job fairs provide employers a way to overcome challenges sometimes associated with brick and mortar job fairs.  Luckily for veterans, the organization Milicruit.com is taking advantage of this trend to create new tools to help veterans and military families find work.

 Milicruit was founded to provide an online forum for veterans seeking employment and employers seeking to hire veterans to meet and interact in online.  Through their “virtual recruitment center,” Milicruit is hosting a series of online job fairs that allow veterans to visit employer booths, view and apply for jobs, and chat and email directly with recruiters and hiring managers, all from the comfort of their home or office.  According to Milicruit, employers say these online forums can save time and money, as well as broaden the candidate pool. 

Milicruit’s next online career fair for veterans and military spouses is scheduled for November 10^th, and is hosted in partnership with Joining Forces.  Over 70 Fortune 1,000 employers and government agencies are registered to participate, and over 27,000 soldiers, veterans, and military spouses have registered to attend.  If you are a veteran or military spouse seeking work, or an employer looking to hire veterans, go to http://www.veteranscareerfair.com to register.

The Internet continues to provide new and exciting resources for Veterans. Click the following links for more examples of how companies are leveraging the power of the internet from The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch.

As Veteran Unemployment Rates Rise, Organizations like Veterans Green Jobs Continue to Fight Back

Reporting on newly released data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the Washington Post explains that post-9/11 veterans have an employment rate of 11.7 percent, which is well over the national rate of 9.1 percent.

In the wake of heightened efforts directed towards combating veteran unemployment and providing necessary job training–such as President Obama’s proposed jobs package which would give companies who hire veterans tax credits–it is disheartening to hear that the problem not only continues, but is getting worse.

One major contributor to this growing epidemic is the staggering number of soldiers who are now able to return home from deployment overseas.

With an increasing number of veterans needing our help, all entities – whether national, local, public or private – should be stepping up and offering whatever support that they can. One such organization, Veterans Green Jobs, has found a unique way to provide career training in wilderness protection. To learn more about it, watch this CBS News video special.

In knowing that increasing numbers of veterans are returning home to become jobless, these most recent unemployment statistics should give our nation renewed inspiration and drive to successfully fight this problem while simultaneously showing our appreciation for the men and women who lay their lives on the line to serve and protect us.

Call of Duty Endowment and Pro vs. GI Joe Partner to Create Awareness and Support for Veteran Employment

Last week the Endowment announced its partnership with Pro vs. GI Joe’s Purpose Driven Rehab Fall Tour. Throughout this tour, substantial grants will be awarded to three deserving and motivated organizations who are also dedicated to helping our veterans find gainful training and employment.

“Purpose Driven Rehab is a military support initiative in which wounded veterans from around the country manage events at some of the biggest sporting venues across the country. This program gives purpose and responsibility to rehabbing veterans, while also bringing national awareness to veterans’ issues.”

The Purpose Driven Rehab Tour will be stopping at “high venue” sporting arenas across the country including Charlotte, Philadelphia, Green Bay, Jacksonville, and Miami, as well as the Army Ten Miler in Washington, D.C., employing local veterans to manage each of these events.

The Examiner points out that in addition to providing grants, we will also be auctioning off a 2011 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty®: Black Ops Edition vehicle and an opportunity to tour the Treyarch studio and meet the makers of the Black Ops video game.

In their partnership with Pro vs. GI Joe’s Purpose Driven Rehab Fall Tour, the Endowment is proud to provide “purpose and responsibility to rehabbing veterans, while also bringing national awareness to veterans’ issues.”

D-Day Anniversary Marks both Remembrance and Celebration

Today marks the anniversary of an infamous day in U.S. History – the 1944 D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy. More than 100,000 soldiers, 5,300 ships, and 11,000 planes valiantly fought to secure not only a foot-hold in Normandy, but also what would later be a victory for man-kind. President Eisenhower on that very day spoke to our American soldiers, explaining that “In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”

While today is a day for remembrance for all those that were lost, it is also a celebration of our nation’s heroes who fight for freedom, justice and equality for all. The Call of Duty Endowment salutes all of our heroes.

Our Vets Are Coming Home…

As this new YouTube video so movingly shows, our vets are coming home and their families and loved ones couldn’t be happier.  Now we need even more employers to step up and provide them with the careers that will help them be successful in their next phase of life. It’s time to reward these men and women for the sacrifices they and their families have made when they served our country so proudly.

Worth the Read…

Now that our Memorial Day campaign has wrapped up, we wanted to bring your attention to an item that may have gotten lost in all the focus of the past seven days.  Afterall, Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor the men and women who serve in our military, but simply that one day observance does not give them a job when they discharge. 

Recently, Senator Kristen Gillibrand, who put forth the “Veterans Employment Act of 2010,” which takes a broad approach to addressing the unemployment rates of our veterans by establishing a Veteran Business Center Program within the Small Business Administration (SBA), creating a program to evaluate ways transitioning service members can build skills learned from their service, and examines the expansion of the National Guard Employment Enhancement Project (NGEEP), wrote an op-ed for the Huffington Post, which examines her legislation and need to help veterans with the unemployment issue.  It’s well worth the read…

Employment & Training

Listed below are a variety of organizations that assist veterans who are searching for employment and new career opportunities:

American Corporate Partners
American Corporate Partners offers free career counseling and mentoring to recently returned veterans by professionals from America’s finest corporations.