The Veterans Green Bus still has $1.500 to raise to pay off the $4,000 repair bill. Just one last push to get us back on the road. Please help veterans who want to continue to serve by providing sustainable energy solutions for disaster response.
We won't be able to make it to NetRoots Nation 13 without your help!
http://www.unitedpeacerelief.ning.com
United Peace Relief's Veterans Green Bus Project empowers Veterans to continue their service by helping communities recover from natural and man made disasters with sustainable energy solutions reducing the cost of fuel for organizations transporting tools, supplies and volunteers by up to 90%. The Veterans Green Bus Project provide sustainable transportation fuel and electrical power for first responders In the event a national disaster occurs and demonstrates how to produce emergency fuel for transportation, emergency generators and off road equipment from used cooking oil. The goal is to train veterans in operating the bus, maintaining it's alternative power and communications systems and cooking facilities and serve the community at large by providing emergency aid while demonstrating sustainable energy solutions.
One thing I've learned in the 25 years of volunteer disaster relief business is to know when you are going to be over your head long before it happens. Well, I'm at that point. Or, I may have already past it.
With repair bills and necessary maintenance work has created a financial setback we were not prepared to handle. This has forced us to rethink our in our planning methods and funding goals before we can confidently commit to any tours of events or offer our services to anyone and be confident that we can deliver.
Reality Check: This Would make a great reality TV show.
To use the Veterans Green Bus as a research and development vehicle for disaster relief efforts effectively, it needs to be safe, provide a needed service and demonstrates a sustainable operational plan before we put it out as a model for duplication.
Frankly, to date, we have been flying by the seat of our pants.
When we started United Peace Relief in 2005, we were blessed to be able to operate sustainably for many years.
When I took the job with Veterans Green Jobs in 2009 we were able to buy the bus and start to operation planning to provide veteran based sustainable disaster relief. However, congressional budget cuts forced Veterans Green Jobs to mothball the program. I purchased the bus from Veterans Green Jobs in order to save the Veterans Green Bus project from dying.
That was a year ago.
Since then, we scouted and found a home for the project in Detroit and moved there in late October of last year. We were not completely unpacked when we got the call from Team Rubicon USA to help them respond to Hurricane Sandy.
Our mission was to gather volunteers, tools and supplies at the Home Depot in Chicago then head to Rockaway, NY. We helped them for the first month then stayed on for another five months to help New York Cares, Americorps, The Conservation Corps and the Friends of Rockaway..
While we were in Rockaway, NY, i was contacted by local a New York City Sanitation Worker, and "Hurricane Sandy Hero" Ed Shevlin. He was looking for musical instruments for Annemarie Acosta at The Acosta School of Irish Music and Dance in Rockaway, NY. He said they lost everything in the storm. I told him, I work with a program called The Feel Good Tour out of Roanoke, VA.. They gather and distribute instruments after disasters. I contacted them to see what they could do. They offered to help and set up a concert in Roanoke, VA at the Community High School to gather more instruments.
We left Rockaway, NY for Roanoke, VA, to attend the event and load the instruments for the return trip.
Everything was going great. We had thirty instruments donated including a violin three guitars and cases, several flutes and penny whistles. The bus had a earlier started problem that we thought we had worked out before we left the concert. We were very wrong.
A few miles outside Roanoke the bus caught fire. We were able to put it out before loosing the bus and the donations. But we were stranded with very little money to deal with the size of this set back.
We had just converted the bus to run on used cooking oil and were preparing to install our collection and filtration systems when we returned to Detroit after dropping off the instruments in Rockaway, NY.
We have spent the last month getting the bus fixed and raising the money to pay for it. We are still $1500 short of the $4,000 bill.
Our goal is STILL to make it to Rockaway NY before Memorial Day Weekend and Net RootsNation 13 in San Jose but. not without your help.
We are a non profit 501-C3 with a great program and clear mission. We just need the financial support to prove our bus can reduce the cost of transporting trained veteran volunteers, tools and power communications equipment by using sustainable energy solutions.
So here is the short term plan.
We need to raise $1500 to finish paying off the fire damage repair bill.
Deliver the musical instruments to Annemarie Acosta at The Acosta School of Irish Music and Dance in Rockaway, NY
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