THANKS USA

Faced with extended deployments, frequent moves, and the demands of supporting a family, many military spouses place their educations on hold. With the generous help of private, corporate and federal funding, ThanksUSA is able to remove a barrier to a better life for military spouses and dependents.

ThanksUSA is a non-partisan organization that mobilizes Americans of all ages to provide tangible thanks to the men and women serving our country and defending our freedom. Founded by two young sisters, Rachel and Kelsi Okun, while still in elementary school, ThanksUSA has become one of the most ambitious scholarship programs available to military families.

ThanksUSA is unique in that both spouses and children of active-duty men and women can apply to the same organization for support. It is also unusual in that scholarships are granted for licensure and certification programs as well as for traditional college, university, vocational school or technical school. This is important because spouses often need to renew or update current professional licensing that has either lapsed or needs to be transferred to another state. Frequent military moves mean that spouses often elect 'portable' careers such as nursing and teaching, but they can only practice if they have up-to-date, state-specific licenses. That's where ThanksUSA comes in.

As ThanksUSA Chairman and CEO Bob Okun wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2007, the nation is "fighting an intensive, protracted … war with an all-volunteer force. Only a relatively small slice of the population … has any real connection to the brave men and women in uniform protecting our freedoms every day." And then he begins to define the necessary action: "Hundreds of thousands of military families need and deserve a variety of support from community members, civic leaders, corporate leaders and all Americans as they set out to reclaim and reassemble their lives in the coming years."

As the ranks of veterans continue to grow, many of them with long-term health issues, spouses are finding that it falls to them to become the primary breadwinner, a serious challenge in a tough economic environment. A drop in family income is not uncommon, making it even harder to fund their children's studies. ThanksUSA makes a crucial difference.

CharityWorks is proud to work with ThanksUSA this year to raise funds to help thousands of military spouses and children. The need is enormous. Just last year, ThanksUSA received 3,500 applications from the spouses and children of our armed forces. While the organization was honored to provide 200 scholarships at $3,000 each, all of us want to do more. We hope that, with your support, ThanksUSA will be able to respond.