By WILLIAM J. \u201cDOC\u201d SCHMITZ<\/p>\n
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges for all Americans, including residents in San Diego, California. As a result, the demand for food assistance has increased at an extraordinary rate.<\/p>\n
While food insecurity \u2013 which is defined as the lack of access to enough nutritionally adequate foods to live an active and healthy life \u2013 is a serious issue impacting millions of Americans, it is particularly concerning for our nation\u2019s service men and women.<\/p>\n
Given this critical need, Humana, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and offices within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) \u2013 including the VA Secretary\u2019s Center for Strategic Partnerships, Voluntary Service Office, and Homeless Programs office \u2013 are mobilizing donors and volunteers for the \u201cUniting to Combat Hunger\u201d campaign in an effort to help food insecure veterans and their families through this pandemic. By donating directly to VA medical centers across the country, we are able to take a targeted approach to assist our nation\u2019s service men and women and ensure donations go directly to those who are experiencing food insecurity or are at risk of food insecurity, whether it\u2019s providing food, gift cards to local grocery stores or even basic supplies they need to help them during this difficult time.<\/p>\n
While our team\u2019s efforts have helped to provide more than 200,000 meals thus far, we invite citizens and organizations to join us in this mission by visiting vfw.org\/utch and making a monetary donation to a VA medical center near you, such as VA San Diego Healthcare System. Every donation will go a long way to help veterans in need.<\/p>\n
Now more than ever, it\u2019s important we don\u2019t take anything for granted \u2013 including access to food. Let\u2019s work together to ensure no one goes hungry and honor the service and sacrifice of our veterans and their families.<\/p>\n
\u2014 William J. \u201cDoc\u201d Schmitz is Commander-in-Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By WILLIAM J. \u201cDOC\u201d SCHMITZ The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges for all Americans, including residents in San Diego, California. As a result, the demand for food assistance has increased at an extraordinary rate. While food insecurity \u2013 which is defined as the lack of access to enough nutritionally adequate foods to live an […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":959,"featured_media":225255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Help feed veterans during COVID-19","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}