WASHINGTON – The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and Student Veterans of America (SVA) are now accepting applications from student veterans interested in participating in the upcoming 2023-2024 VFW-SVA Legislative Fellowship program. Now in its 10th year, the fellowship will bring select student veterans — who must be VFW members –– to Washington, D.C., early next March to meet face to face with their members of Congress and senior policy makers.
Student veterans interested in applying must complete an application package that includes a 400 – 600-word essay and video proposal on the importance of veteran advocacy. The submission should include a discussion of why advocacy is important to the veteran community, and how the fellowship candidate plans to address solutions through community-based advocacy.
Past fellows have earned academic credit for their experience, found internships, accepted additional academic opportunities, and landed fulltime employment as a result of their fellowship experience. Several fellows have even had their research integrated into laws, which makes an everlasting impact on veterans, service members and their families.
VFW-SVA Legislative Fellowship opportunities are open to all currently enrolled student veterans. Eligibility criteria can be found here. Selected fellows will attend and participate in the SVA National Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Jan. 4 – 6, 2024. They will then be flown to Washington, D.C., to ensure the veterans’ message is delivered to Capitol Hill alongside 500 fellow advocates as part of the VFW Legislative Conference, March 3 – 7, 2024.
All applications must be submitted by midnight on Sept. 6. For full details about the VFW-SVA fellowship and to apply, visit VFW.org/StudentFellowship or contact Patrick Murray, VFW, at Pmurray@vfw.org or Tammy Barlet, SVA, at tammy.barlet@studentveterans.org.
The VFW-SVA Legislative Fellowship is another example of the strong collaboration between VFW and SVA that resulted from a memorandum of understanding signed by the two organizations at the SVA National Conference in January 2013.