LatinaLista — For many young Latinos, joining the military is a way to have their education paid for or “see the world” or do something with their lives. Unless they decide to make it a career, these same young people, along with their fellow soldiers, are finding it a tough go at finding a job when they’re discharged.
According to some statistics on the military:
There are 508,000 unemployed veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 in the U.S.
The present unemployment rate for recently discharged veterans is an alarming 20 percent, and one out of every four veterans who do find employment earn less than $25,000 per year.
Veterans aged 20-24 had an unemployment rate of 12 percent, 50 percent higher than the national jobless rate for in that age group.
The disparity is even greater for veterans with college degrees: they earn $9,526 less a year.
Hire Heroes USA is trying to help these veterans find a job by providing free transitional career services to them but it takes money.
That’s why a special Memorial Day campaign was created to increase grant funding for Hire Heroes USA (HHUSA) and also to create greater awareness about the unemployment problem among military veterans.
Spearheaded by Call of Duty Endowment (CODE), a non-profit created by video game maker Activision Blizzard, the makers of the Call of Duty video game series, the grant campaign “will go towards employment training programs that help military veterans successfully compete for 21st Century careers.”
The campaign is scheduled to end tonight at 11:59 p.m. PST or until a grant of $50,000 has been reached, whichever benchmark expires first.
Contributing to the campaign is very easy — for every new fan that helps CODE support veterans and says they “Like” the Call of Duty Endowment Facebook page, CODE will increase their donation to HHUSA by $1.
“People need to wake up and recognize what’s happening to our vets when they leave the service.” — Brian Stann, executive director of Hire Heroes USA.
(Update: The goal of 30,000 fans was reached and Hire Heroes USA will receive their grant of $50,000.)
