Thank you.
We are currently being supported through the VAC family well-being fund, which ends next year. We do not have future possibilities of funding because we are a non-profit, not a charity. I currently have stacks of paper of potential grant funding that we could apply for, but we're not a charity. We need a charity to have an MOU with. That is not easily done. There's so little funding out there that everyone wants to keep it to themselves.
If VAC could recognize these small grassroots efforts that can support women tangibly and allow them to think for the future, if it could be forward-thinking on more support and on building a better community.... Instead, every year I write reports and I write for grants and I search and beg for money from people to support us, because everything we are doing is supporting the community and everyone.
If Veterans Affairs could recognize organizations like ours and others out there, I think that would go a long way in giving back the power to the women who have been lost to a system that doesn't care about them.