As a decorated Marine combat veteran of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jake Wood, who was stationed at Camp Pendleton and is a former University of Wisconsin football player, discovered that he and other veterans have the perfect skills to provide global humanitarian disaster relief. The result is Team Rubicon, an organization he co-founded that has assisted thousands of victims of natural disasters in places ranging from Haiti (it's first project) to Chile to Pakistan. With Team Rubicon, Wood has helped thousands of people and engaged a great untapped national resource: our veterans.
Team Rubicon unites military veterans with medical professionals and others who call themselves '21st century Medical Minutemen." Volunteers not satisfied with standing on the sidelines. Team Rubicon is self-sustaining, self-reliant and self-deploying. They bring only what they need, deploying rapidly to where they are needed. Tonight, Team Rubicon hosts a benefit reception at a private residence La Jolla that will help the organization's current humanitarian project in Sudan. For more information about the event tonight or to donate to Team Rubicon, call 619-243-6117, email events@teamrubiconusa.org, or visit the website: www.teamrubiconusa.org/sudan/reception.
Yeshua Adonai, an active duty Marine and public affairs officer at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego (MCRD), is the director of tonight's event and a stauch supporter of Team Rubicon. "I've seen a lot of veterans who have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) get involved in humanitarian missions with Team Rubicon," he says, "and I've literally seen that PTSD melt away as they help people around the globe. It's remarkable."
Next month, Team Rubicon will launch its first proactive mission to Sudan, 'Peace through Medicine." The benefit tonight is being held in order to raise funds that will allow the organization to undertake this mission and other humanitarian missions in Mozambique, Burma, Pakistan, and tentatively a prolonged rebuilding mission to Haiti. Tickets to this event are available for $100 for a basic ticket and $250 for a premium ticket which includes a VIP Reception beginning at 6:00 p.m. prior to the benefit reception. Team Rubicon's co-founder William McNulty wrote recently on Huffington Post:
