Phone Cards for the Troops

[Ava]

Give the troops what Uncle Sam won't: Support the veterans who've served our country by sending them a phone card so they can call their loved ones over the holidays.

Veterans Administration (VA) budget cuts in recent years have left many of our nation's veterans at VA hospitals without the means to call their families over the holidays. These long distance calls are generally not covered by the VA, and many vets just don't have the financial resources to call all their loved ones.

So Working Assets, Veterans for Peace, CODEPINK, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Gold Star Families for Peace have teamed up on a project to thank our veterans by sending them phone cards loaded with 125 minutes of domestic long-distance calling time. We'll purchase these cards and deliver them to VA Medical Facilities all over the country on December 18th.

$10 will cover the cost of phone cards for three veterans. $20 will buy six phone cards. $33 will buy ten cards. $100 will buy phone cards for 30 veterans to call home over the holidays. 100% of your gift will go directly to buying phone cards -- so please give as generously as you can.

Link: https://www.workingforchange.com/Order/index.cfm?OrderFormID=6

[BOSSHOG]

1. You are so kind to post this

A Soldier or Marine in the field wants nothing for Christmas more then to talk to a loved one back home.

[rollopollo]

2. This is a good gesture

...but I just want to point out that Working Assets is a for-profit company and they typically skim off the top. Not saying that it should deter you from doing this. The rate for calling cards in Iraq usually ranges from about 3.5 cents a minute to 7 cents a minute. Their rate is somewhat higher than the high end of this range.

I was actually talking w/a friend of mine recently (actually wife of my friend), who works for Working Assets. She was telling me how much she enjoyed working there; but she was surprised to find out that their two top executives have homes in Atherton. Atherton is in the top 5 most expensive cities as far as home prices go. The average home price is $979,000; the Bay Area has a number of wealthy towns (with all the money made from software/Internet and now biotech)- Los Altos, Saratoga - where many are millionaires. But Atherton is where all the uber-rich people live; for example CEOs, and the people who made tens of million at Google- many have been jostling to buy homes in Atherton. Just thought that was interesting.