On this page, we share successes, accomplishments, and personal stories of those involved with The Call of America. As we grow, we hope that this page becomes filled with uplifting stories of lives changed. We'll share stories of those veterans and first responders that we've helped and share insight into how serving others is changing our lives as well. Here at The Call Of America we're focused on celebrating humanity by giving of our time, talents, and treasures just because it's the right thing to do. We don't expect anything in return, but we do get something. We experience the personal growth and inner peace that comes from serving others less fortunate than ourselves.
April 4, 2012
The Call Of America helped Project Help of Steuben County provide 500 in-need children with Easter Baskets.
Thank you to all of our volunteers and donors!
Jennifer LaRose
March 5, 2012
It looks like we have succeeded, but we are still fighting with the VA on a very deserving Vet's pension/disability. Between Jennifer at The Call Of America and Jim from the Fremont American Legion, our voices have been heard in Indianapolis and Washington,DC. We have acquired all of his medical records from his service, and after, to prove his head injures occurred whilst he was enlisted. Jim has been kind enough to transport him to The VA hospital in Ft. Wayne on multiple occasion to meet with Doctors and pension representatives. We finally heard back from Indy saying that we have made enough of a stink about the issue an they finally agreed that he is due a very large amount in back pension and disability. Jim again helped by taking him to the VA regional offices in Marion twice. The last step was for him to meet with psychologists to see if he will be able to care for his money when he receives it. (It is due to be a very large amount) If they decide he isn't able then the VA will control his assets from Marion. We have filed paperwork to request that our director, Jennifer LaRose and Jim become his financial caretakers, so that all his financial accountability classes can be done here in the The Call Of America offices in Angola. We are hoping to hear from the VA any day on their decision. Keep us in your prayers!!
Last week we had an afganistan vet that was in need of food and gas for his vehicle. His family has dietary issues so not all the food here at project help would work. We purched about $10 in more food for his family and a $20 gas card from shell. He was very appreicative!
Since being trained in the Benefit Bank from the State of Indiana, our director has assisted 2 veterans in filing their income taxes, has another tax appointment next week and has a FAFSA appt for next week too. She even helped anoter Vet register to vote.
December 22, 2011
The Call Of America Hosted a Veteran's Christmas Dinner at Terrace Ridge Apartment in Angola, Indiana on Dec 22, 2011.
We gifted the apartment an amazing BINGO set that can be used by the residents throughout the year. Every veteran and spouse in attendance received a Christmas gift from The Call Of America. Thank you to the Weaver family and The Indiana Children of the Revolution for their wonderful entertainment.
Christmas Assistance
The Call Of America was instrumental in it's help in organizing the Christmas Adoption Program Steuben. Through our corporate office in Angola, IN, The Call of America assisted 151 children with Christmas gifts from Santa. Some of these children were adopted out by area businesses and families. Thank you to all of our amazing volunteers and to Project Help of Steuben County.
December 1, 2011
Interviewing prospective families for assistance with The Marines Toys for Tots program.
November 21, 2011
Thanksgiving Dinner
The Call Of America helped to provide area veterans in need with a complete Thanksgiving meal that they prepared for their families. Thank you to all our amazing Volunteers.
November 20, 2011
Thank You Fremont High School Basketball team for volunteering your time on a Sunday to help organize the main office!
October 14, 2011
When Turning Point Homeless Shelter receives a veteran resident they call The Call Of America. We assist them in getting the veteran into permanent housing and sometimes providing them with travel expenses for their veterans. A stranded veteran from Florida needed help getting home from Indiana. The Call Of America stepped in to provide a bus ticket.
September 9, 2011
With the cost of utilities rising, The Call Of America is assisting our low income veterans with their utility bills. Utility assistance and referral is one of the many things we do at The Call Of America to help our veterans.
Friday August 5, 2011
The growing number of veteran children who use the free/reduce lunch program at school is growing at an alarming rate each year. We are currently purchasing and gathering school supplies to help these children attend classes with all of their necessary items. Your support insures that no child is left behind.
The beginning of each month means rent time! The Call Of America each month helps to support previously homeless veterans and veterans on the verge of homelessness with rent assistance.
The Call Of America was able to pay for a WWII veteran to have his hearing aid refurbished today! While helping to clean his apartment, we found that he was having a hard time hearing because he could’t afford to fix his hearing aid. It is our way of thanking our senior warriors for the crucial role they had in securing our freedom.
Friday July 29, 2011
Fridays are our FUN days at The Call Of America! That is because we spend them visiting our homebound senior warriors and delivering delicious food. Today on the menu was Executive Director Jennifer LaRose’s homemade minestrone soup! By visiting our Senior Warriors weekly, we are able to see what needs they may have and how we can better serve them!
The Call Of America was visited this week by a client of ours that served in Vietnam. All he wanted to do was thank us for helping him! He shared, “The day before I meet you I had planned to take my life. Now I have reason to live again.” That is what it is all about…changing lives.
On any given day you can find us in retirement communities helping veterans apply for their pensions or other benefits. In the homes of our senior warriors helping to clean their homes because it has become a burden to them. Or helping our younger veterans with their GI Bill. We are constantly striving to provide the support that each veteran requires.
July 23, 2011
Today was a great day for The Call Of America and our veteran clients. Executive Director Jennifer LaRose and a handful of The Call Of America volunteers worked at a Kid’s Against Hunger Event in Angola, Indiana. Kid’s Against Hunger is an organization that feed hungry children around the world and around the corner. Their revolutionary food package has been developed by some of the world's leading food scientists at Cargill, Pillsbury, General Mills and ADM. This one package provides six nutritionally-complete servings for only 25 cents per serving. The Call of America spent the day packaging food for distribution to low income veteran families in local communities in the State of Indiana. Some of these meals will be used to feed our homeless veterans at homeless shelters throughout the state. For more information about Kid’s Against Hunger visit http://www.kah-greenwood.org/about-us/our-food
July 15, 2011
Many of our low income veterans visit us looking for food assistance. Veterans who visit the corporate office located in the Project Help building in Angola, Indiana on Mondays can receive fresh food from the Community Harvest Farm Wagon from Ft. Wayne. Items vary each week, but may include fruit, vegetables, dairy items and bread.
Thank you to the American Legion Riders from Churubusco for your donation of food and toiletries for our veterans in need! Along with donations given by local residence we are able to feed dozen of veterans and their families each week.
July 8, 2011
We are continuing to collect items for our homeless veterans. Items needed still are:
• Full or twin bed
• Small dresser
• Tooth brushes - 25
• Tooth brush holders 50
• Toilet brushes 50
• Toilet Cleaner 50
• Shampoo 25 and Conditioner 25
These items will benefit homeless shelters throughout the state of Indiana that care for our lost veterans.
We are continuing to work with previous homeless veterans to ensure they stay on the road to recovery. We meet weekly to work on social skills, financial counseling, job placement, etc to help them stay contributing members of society.
June 26th, 2011
Hi Team,
I spoke to a Michael Chevrier from Indianapolis. He said he would like to help out with some job placement for the veterans. He gave me a website that the vets can sign-up to work with them re-doing Walgreens and a few more stores. He needs about 20 people and said that they need to mention his name on the referred by section. The supervisor that they will be interviewing with is Michael Peloza. Michael said they are desperate and would like to use veterans if possible. The work will last until the end of the year but could turn to permanent positions. Didn’t know if this would be of use to us but could be good for the vets.
The website is www.crossmart.com
May 26th, 2011
The Call Of America had the pleasure of meeting Clara Rensberger. Clara is 100 years young and the widow of a WWI veteran! Clara came to us in need of a moving van and able body volunteers to help her move. Thank you Jim Ingledue and Ingledue Construction for your assistance and use of your truck and trailer! And a huge thank you to our 5 volunteers! We are proud to have Clara as a part of our The Call Of America family!
May 20th, 2011
Armed Forced Day... Friday May 20th, The Call Of America hosted a luncheon in Angola for several veterans and family members of veterans. Director Jennifer LaRose was there as was our founder Todd Saylor. It was a great time. Todd Saylor shared a heartwarming prayer, stories of experiences serving our country were told, photographs old and new were passed around, and the food was excellent. This was an opportunity for us at The Call Of America to get to know some of our local vets and for them to get to know us as well. The room was filled with laughter, smiles all around, and an atmosphere of sincere appreciation for the services that had been rendered by these folks the the country they love. We all had a great time and we're grateful for the time together.
April 2011
The gift of hearing... Recently we heard of a veteran who lost his hearing while serving his country, but couldn't get assistance from the veteran's administration because of improper documentation of the injury all those years ago.
Our director, Jennifer LaRose jumped right in and The Call Of America is happy to report that we're getting this deserving vet outfitted with state-of-the-art hearing aids.
Thank-You to all of our supporters who have been donating to our cause. We're doing everything we can to help deserving veterans and first responders one soul at a time.
January 25 2011
Leonard is an Indiana Veteran and he has lung cancer. He was honorably discharged from the Army during the Vietnam era. After the war he worked many years for the State of Indiana sandblasting plows and then repainting them with 2 other gentlemen. Since that time, one of then men's lung was removed and the other man died from lung cancer. Leonard already has had 1/2 lung removed. He has been battling this for 2 years. His doctor prescribed him Tarciva, a new drug that is cell specific. Tarciva cost $5000 for 30 days of pills. Because his lung cancer is not service related he can not receive VA assistance. The Call Of America is working with Representative Dick Dodge, the State of Indiana and the Pharmaceutical Company to find a speedy solution to Leonard's problem.
Paul is an Army Veteran with Crohn's Disease. He has a daughter in the military and a son who is currently serving in Afghanistan. In a few weeks Paul will be having a bowel transplant surgery at the U of M Medical Center. He'll stay there for approximately a month. When he returns home he will be wheelchair bound. Currently his bathroom's door is not wide enough for a wheelchair to fit through. His entire bathroom is in need of expansion so that his wheelchair can have access to the sink, bathtub and toilet. The Call Of America is working with the Veteran's Administration, Musson Builders and soon to be countless construction vendors to improve his quality of life when he returns.
The Call Of America Corporate Office is now ready for us! We will start moving in later this week. We have received donations of office supplies and other office items but we are still need the following: desk, chair for desk, 2 chairs for visitors, shelving, file cabinet. Local Pickup of your donated items can be arranged.
Our new Corporate Office address is:
The Call Of America 711 E. Harcourt Rd, Angola, Indiana, 46703
January 15 2011
Our Call Center - "Finally! A cause we can believe in."
Our call center itself is a success story...
The Call Of America has an ultimate dream of building an organization of veterans helping veterans. It's engrained in to every facet of our organization. Take our call center for instance. The individuals manning the phones in our call center are not high-school or college kids making a few extra bucks working part time. Our guys have been in the military, or homeless on the streets, or even in jail. They are vets that needed help and we hired them. We started with five, we've grown to 12, and we're planning to go to about 25. We're providing them with an opportunity to earn a living, giving them an hand up, not a hand out, and they're great! Because of their backgrounds they know what it's like for vets out there and they want to help other veterans as much as we do. We're proud to have them on our team.
These are the guys in the trenches, working every day to generate the funds that keep us going. Without them, we wouldn't be able to help anyone else. We all know it, we've got to have the funds coming in to keep the organization moving forward but we're different at The Call Of America.
Most call centers work for a multitude of 'customers' and keep as much as 90% of donations for themselves leaving only about 10% actually making it to the individual non-profit organizations that hired them.
Not us! We have our own call center and because of that, 100% of the funds we generate go directly to The Call Of America.
When we explained all this to our call center, that our goal was to use as little of the income as possible for operational costs and use the majority of the funds directly helping veterans and first responders, one of our guys shouted out; "Finally! A cause we can believe in."
We tend to agree.
December 7 2010
Our first entry comes from the first person to ever donate to The Call Of America, Mary LeMay-Rott. Think of it... Our first donation came about because of the shining example of a life well lived, the life of John F. LeMay, veteran, loving father, and patriot.
John F. LeMay – beloved husband and father passed away on November 21, 2010. His contributions to family can only be measured by the true love of his country. He served in the Navy during World War II and is a descendent to General Curtis LeMay. He was a proud and illustrious individual within the Armed forces and was honored with a visit to Washington DC this past year through the Honor Flight program.
He will be deeply missed by family and friends within the military. His leadership skills learned in the military embraced his work and home life and every one meeting him was blessed with his kind and loving nature. We thank those who have donated in his name to The Call of America to assist other military families with funds to assist those in need.
Written and submitted by: Mary LeMay-Rott
