Department of New Hampshire

Veterans Helping Vetrans Group at NH Veterans Home

Posted at 07:54 AM on Thursday, November 5, 2009 by New Hampshire Blog Master

New Hampshire Veterans Home                                          NEWS RELEASE

139 Winter Street                                                                   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tilton, NH 03276                                                                   November 4, 2009

Contact: Jackie Bonafide, Program Information Officer

Phone: (603) 527-4400

SUBJECT: Veterans Helping Veterans group at NHVH Seeks Gift Certificates for Raffle

TILTON, NH - Being away from home during the holidays is hard, but being in the military on a battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq is much, much harder. At the New Hampshire Veterans Home (NHVH), the residents and staff are supporting servicemen and women overseas in a special “Veterans Helping Veterans” effort and would like others to contribute by donating gift certificates for a raffle prize that will be drawn on Wednesday, November 25.

Several times a year NHVH staff and volunteers hold a raffle for the Veterans Helping Veterans program. With the money raised, they buy toothpaste, soap, deodorant, insect repellant, sunscreen, nutritious snacks, and powdered drink mixes, which they package and send to servicemen and women. They insert homemade cards and handwritten letters from NH Veterans Home residents, who really understand what it feels like to be far from home in a combat situation. The thank-you letters that come back from the service members are touching and gratifying.

One soldier wrote, “I want to thank you for your generous gift of care packages and letters. It saves the soldiers a little money by not having to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste at the base. More importantly, by receiving the care packages, the soldiers know that they have the support from back home. That alone means more than anything!”

This year the members of Veterans Helping Veterans are raffling off a lighted Christmas tree and asking friends to donate gift certificates to attach to the tree. The gift certificates or gift cards can be for anything—dinners at restaurants, movie tickets, purchases at stores, and much more. Raffle tickets are sold at the Veterans Home (139 Winter Street in Tilton) and on November 25 the name of the raffle winner will be drawn. That person will receive the lighted tree, along with all of the gift certificates attached to the tree. The Veterans Helping Veterans group wants to encourage businesses and individuals to help by donating gift certificates to decorate the tree.

For more information on how to participate, please contact Donna Lamprey, NH Veterans Home “Veterans Helping Veterans” Program, at (603-527-4400). If you’d like to send a gift certificate (big or small, one or more), it can be mailed to NHVH Vets Helping Vets Christmas Raffle, 139 Winter Street, Tilton, NH 03276. If it’s more convenient, Donna will come to a business and pick up the gift certificate.

Established in Tilton in 1890 as the Soldier’s Home for Civil War Veterans, the New Hampshire Veterans Home was one of just four New Hampshire nursing homes to win the first Quality of Life Award in 2007 from the New Hampshire Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS). NHVH was recognized again this year by DHHS for its continuing commitment to nursing home culture change and quality of life. The NHVH campus is home to 200 men and women who have proudly served their country and fellow New Hampshire citizens.  The mission of NHVH is to provide high quality, professional long-term care services to the Granite State’s elderly and disabled veterans.  NHVH is the only long-term care facility in the Granite State that is dedicated exclusively to veterans.

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