HOW IT BEGAN
THE STORY BEHIND SENIOR VETERANS ADMINISTRATION SERVICE OF OHIO & WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO
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In 2008, one of the founders mother passed away. In the wake of her passing, she left behind a second husband, a veteran; a man of 20 years her senior, to now fend for himself. Had he been a younger man, this would not have been a daunting task however at the age of 92, it was monumental!
A friend called the family to share their condolences with our founder and informed them of a benefit provided by the Department of Veteran Affairs, which provides tax free cash for long term care costs to all war time veterans and their spouses.
To find out more information about this benefit, our founders traveled great distances and committed themselves to endless hours of investigating and educated themselves about all they could concerning this benefit. Once done, they applied their knowledge to help his stepfather in making this claim.
Through trial and error, in addition to a 9 month processing period, they were successful! The successful claim was well received by the veteran and naturally, he was excited about the support he was receiving from the VA and began telling his fellow veterans about how and who got him this money. Unfortunately, they found that working with the VA directly was as much as a challenge as it was navigating through the 44-64 page federal application; at this point an idea was forming. Could there exist an organization outside of the VA that would help folks; one, know that this benefit actually exists and two, better understand this process and give them some idea if they should attempt the application process for benefits or not?
To make this long story short, the founders' phone did not stop ringing, especially when then the Cleveland Plain Dealer produced a front-page article on how they were helping veterans and senior community out with little known VA benefits.
Due to overwhelming demand for help, Senior Veterans Administration Services of Ohio (SVASO) was born and now has grown to be known as SVAS-USA.
Since its early beginning until now the charity has had the honor of helping place in the hands of our area's veterans and their surviving spouses an estimated $3.4 million dollars in benefits! All done by volunteers who give their time but do not receive a penny for their efforts.