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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Grassroots Fundraiser for Valour-IT Provides Wounded with Voice-activated Laptops

Pasadena, CA (November 13, 2006): Divided into “competing” teams representing Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force, military and civilian bloggers spent the days leading up to Veterans Day 2006 raising over $180,000 to aid severely-wounded troops. The funds raised will allow Soldiers’ Angels Project Valour-IT to continue its work of supplying voice-activated laptops to the wounded.

The Valour-IT fundraising competition is a yearly online event. The first friendly competition raised $100,000 in 10 days last year. This year it was extended to 13 days and the total raised, when donations by mail are counted, is expected to exceed $210,000. Depending on vendor discounts, this year’s total should fund the purchase and shipment of over 300 laptops.

Valour-IT’s inspiration, Army Captain Chuck Ziegenfuss, writes from personal experience:

I know how much it means to the guys who are stuck lying on their backs, unable to use their hands to so much as scratch…I know how humbling it is, how humiliating it feels. And I know how much better I felt, how amazingly more functional I felt [when I received a voice-activated laptop]. I can't wait to do the same, to give that feeling to another soldier…

Project Valour-IT began in August 2005 after Captain Ziegenfuss suffered serious hand wounds in Iraq. Friends realized how much having a voice-activated laptop could help and encourage him as he healed, and an idea was born. Valour-IT has since supplied over 650 laptops to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from severe injuries in military hospitals and at home.

If you missed the Valour-IT fundraising competition, there is still a little time left to give and have it counted toward the team total. From John yesterday at Castle Argghhh! on Valour-IT:

Well done, everybody! That's 280 or so laptops for wounded warriors.

By the way - if you'd still like to give - use the button below and help our Air Force bretheren reach their goal. Might as well pay it forward!

If that button fails to work, then go here.