NATIONAL CHARITIES

Homes for our Troops’ (HFOT) mission is to build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post 9/11 veterans to enable them to rebuild their lives.  The veterans who are served are among the nation’s most severely injured with missing limbs, varying levels of paralysis, blindness, and traumatic brain injury.

Each home is equipped with over 40 major special adaptations and exceeds ADA compliancy standards.  Rebuilding lives is the most important aspect of our mission.  We stay with our veterans after home delivery providing a pro bono financial planner for three years, and a peer mentoring program.

As of March 2021, HFOT has built and donated 315 specially adapted custom homes nationwide.  Currently, there are 60 veterans on our active project list.  Our goal is to build a home for every veteran who qualifies.  

Medical debt is a uniquely American injustice. It prevents millions from achieving financial stability and subjects them to emotional anguish. Medical debt destroys the financial stability of large segments of America’s most vulnerable communities: our sick, elderly, poor, and veterans. It also targets the middle class, driving many families who are barely getting along into poverty. 

RIP Medical Debt (RIP) eliminates unpaid, unpayable medical debt for individuals who are: 1) below 200% of the federal poverty level; 2) facing a medical debt more than 5% of their annual income; or 3) insolvent—their debts are greater than their assets. Using consumer credit data, RIP analyzes bundled debt portfolios held by healthcare providers and secondary market debt sellers, This allows identify accounts meeting its criteria for financial relief. RIP then negotiates to buy these portfolios at their current industry market value, often paying less than a penny on a dollar. Once purchased, RIP abolishes the debt at no cost or tax consequence to the debtor, and the debt is also removed from the credit reports of the debtor.

Debt relief is a direct investment in the welfare and well-being of communities across the country. It engenders stability in other crucial areas of people’s lives, such as their finances, health, home, family, or career. Since inception, RIP Medical Debt has abolished $4.9 billion of unpayable medical debt for more than 2.8 million individuals and their families. Over $1 billion has been abolished for 506,733 individuals in January-June of 2021.  

Puppies Behind Bars (PBB) trains prison inmates to raise service dogs for wounded war veterans and first responders as well as explosive detection canines for law enforcement.  As puppies mature into well-loved, well-behaved dogs, their raisers learn what it means to contribute to society rather than take from it.  PBB now works in six men’s and women’s correctional facilities in New York and New Jersey, with approximately 125 inmates raising 75 puppies at any given time. 

Inmates in the program are entrusted with an eight week old puppy and are charged with training the puppy as an expert service dog performing more than 100 commands, or as an explosive detection canine.  In either case, the dogs are depended upon, quite literally, to save lives. The inmate puppy raisers receive weekly instruction from  PBB’s professional staff and live together in a dedicated housing unit.  Aside from the practical skills the inmates gain, they are transformed by hard work, trust, and the puppies’ unconditional love to become more confident, positive, and disciplined to accept the possibility of becoming successful members of society.

The Oglala Lakota Children’s Justice Center supports hundreds of children in crisis each year by recruiting and training volunteers to serve as advocates. OLCJC currently has two dedicated staff members, an executive director and a child advocacy coordinator, and a small number of volunteers who perform many  hours of work on each child’s case.  The advocates visit the children in foster homes and residential facilities, interview parents, case workers, and medical professionals, and make recommendations to the court regarding the welfare of the children. 

Oftentimes an OLCJC advocate is the only constant in the turbulent lives of these children, many of whom are victims of sexual abuse. At present OLCJC is advocating for nearly 100 children, from newborn to age 17, in the tribal court system. Hundreds more need help. 

Local volunteers must not only donate their time but also cover their own expenses. Since so many are living in poverty on the reservation, it is difficult to recruit volunteers without funds to alleviate the added expenses.