Paralyzed Veterans Of America

Advocacy: the chapter sent a new team from the board of directors to washington d.c. Each year with follow-up letters and visits, when possible, with arizona elected officials here at home.

Hospital and services: establish and maintain working relationships with the va (veteran affairs) medical centers. We try to reach out to newly spinal cord injured or neurologically impaired persons and their families to re-introduce them back into society through personal contact, technical assistance, and education. We are working to re-establish a regular hospital visit program with the directors of all three hospitals. The sci clinic in prescott hospital was without a social worker until the end of our fiscal year. The new sw is very positive and wants to be included in azpva events. The phoenix hospital clinic currently has 320 sci/scd patients. Most of our inroads to meet with potential members have been with visits to the tucson and phoenix hospitals and have been through the sports programs.

Outreach: the visits to the tucson va provided us with 2 female members to represent the arizona chapter at the national pvas woman's veterans empowerment retreat. We were able to give away a roof repair to a deserving vetran through a national pva program. Next on our list was finding two menbers to receive recycled vehicles from the national autobody council. One of our worthy members received a 2012 toyota sienna van with a six-way power seat, hand controls, and a powerlift. Our second member was awarded a 2017 chevrolet silverado. We also gave away food boxes, a bag of fruit, and turkeys at the phoenix sci/d clinic. Membership and benefits: added 23 new members and 25 members passed during the year; assisted veterans in obtaining an aggregate of approximately 9.9 million in cash benefits through our nso office.