Team Rubicon needs your vote
Crossposted with slight alterations from my other home.
Most of you probably remember Team Rubicon, but for those who don’t, here’s a recent American Legion Magazine article written about them, but if you haven’t read it yet, you can do so at this link. (CLICK HERE TO READ IT.)
The moment he saw the destruction on TV in January 2010, former Marine scout-sniper Jake Wood knew he had to get to Haiti. He called a few friends, posted a quick note on Facebook – “I’m going to Haiti. Who’s in?” – filled some duffel bags with first-aid supplies and headed for the airport.
Team Rubicon was born.
Forty-eight hours later, Wood joined seven other volunteers – Marines, firefighters, physicians, a priest and a former Special Forces medic – at the Santo Domingo airport in the Dominican Republic and headed for the Haitian border. Six days after the magnitude-7 earthquake devastated the region, they were running a makeshift emergency room in the courtyard of Port-au-Prince’s largest hospital.
By the end of the mission, Team Rubicon had treated thousands of Haitians and started a rapid-response group that has since dispatched combat veterans to natural disasters from Alabama and Indiana to Burma and the Sudan.
“I self-responded to Hurricane Katrina with a buddy from high school, and I saw how poor the response could be when things got overwhelming,” Wood says. “No one is better qualified than veterans to do this. This is an opportunity for them to feel like a part of a team, to engage in a mission. This is the opportunity I’ve been looking for since I took off the uniform (in 2009).”
Here’s a video about that trip:
Anyway, Chase Bank has their American Giving Awards going on right now, and one of the finalists for the $2 million is Team Rubicon. About that competition:
25 charities. $2 million. 1 star-studded television event.
The American Giving Awards are back for the second year, and we need your help deciding which charities will share in $2 million in grants! Twenty-five past Chase Community Giving charities will be honored during an emotional and entertainment-filled ceremony, and five charities will leave the stage with a share in $2 million to continue their amazing work. Here’s how you can get involved:
Voting
Voting is open, running November 27 and through December 4 on Facebook. Choose your favorite charity from among 25 inspiring past Chase Community Giving grant recipients, and vote today. You can .
So, sorry for the last minute appeal, but today is the last day. Team Rubicon is the only veterans or military charity in there, so please consider logging on to your facebook and heading over to cast a vote to help this great group of folks out.
Category: Politics
They don’t stand a chance. Did you know their competition includes “Women Making Movies?” It’s “a feminist filmmakers’ collective.” I voted for Rubicon anyway. I like underdogs. I don’t FB but I do have an old Chase account that got me in through the Chase website.
I have been following Jake through his blog long before TR was even a gleam in his eye. I want to vote for TR, but CHASE (to me) is just using this as an information gathering exercise. The app that they require you to install in order to cast a vote, requires you to provide: Your basic info;Your profile info: description, activities, education history, hometown, interests, likes and location; and Friends’ likes.
That’s way too invasive…
I’d rather donate to them directly. If you can provide a mailing address, I can do that. Thanks.
ex-PH2 – http://teamrubiconusa.org/
Thanks!
I support Team Rubicon with an automatic monthly donation.
For this contest, you can vote more than once – once for Facebook and once for each Chase account that you have.
It’s a great group – helps vets, helps the community directly, and gets more bang for the buck for their taxpayer-funded training. They’ve done amazing work for Hurricane Sandy.