Seven great ways your bootstrapping skills can help homeless war veterans

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If you haven’t heard already, today is Blog Action Day and this years theme is poverty. You can read more about this here. I chose to make my post about something that hits close to home while others cover the many needs in other countries. Homeless War Veterans.

For many Veterans, coming home after serving in the war is hard emotionally as well as physically and most of all, financially. For many of our brave soldiers, they cannot afford to pay rent and wind up homeless. According to USA Today in November of 2007, Veterans made up 1 in 4 homeless people roaming the streets of America. This number makes me sick. How can our country expect these men and women to risk their lives for us and then come home and not support them when they need us?

So, I put together 10 great ways our bootstrapping skills can help War Veterans in our local cities as well as around the entire country. Let me know if you can think of any more or how you’ve involved your business in any of these ten great bootstrapping skills to help our Soldiers.

1. Gain some media attention - We’re no strangers to doing things to attract attention to our businesses right? So put it to good use. Try making a nice guerrilla marketing campaign that helps get the awareness levels up about the soldiers who are homeless in this country. For some guerrilla marketing inspiration, check out these posts: here, here and here.
2. Donate a % of your profits - During certain months of the year business donate part of their profits to charities about breast cancer and other causes so why not pick a month and donate a percentage of your profits to a homeless veterans charity? With my Tennessee Web Design company I am donating 10% of all profits in November to the National Coalition for Homeless Veternas and I urge you to do something similar.
3. Rent out a hotel for the evening - Find a hotel around your area that has 20-30 rooms and invite homeless veterans in your area to stop by and get a nice shower and a place to sleep for the evening. Yes, it may not be the biggest thing in the world to do, but I am sure they will appreciate it.
4. Spare a few dollars - Every time I went to the dollar store by my home for about 2 months straight, a homeless veteran would be sitting outside asking for spare change. I would always give him money.
5. Spare some of your time - With the same guy above, I would talk to him and have a conversation with him. This few minutes of my life helped this man get through his day (yes, he told me that he was happy I talked to him). I was the only person to take time and talk to him while others either walked grimly by or dropped change in but never looked at him.
6. Open up some jobs in your company - Does your company have a few openings? Why not fill these spots with the War Veterans who need jobs? If they don’t understand a certain aspect of the job, train them. They’re good listeners and follow instructions very well
7. Donate some of your items - Do you run a computer store? why not donate some computers to a local homeless shelter or to a hospital for Veterans? What about those of you who run a clothing line? Why not donate some clothing to a charity for War Veterans? You could even give the homeless Veterans in your area some clothing right out of your car. What can your business donate to help homeless War Veterans?

So as you can see, there are many ways your business and bootstrapping skills can benefit the homeless War Veterans in this country, so get out there and do your part. I know I am.