Are you a Veteran seeking a challenge and adventure? Registration is now open for VA’s 2023 National Veterans Summer Sports Clinic (NVSSC) from June 4 to 9 in San Diego.
Spots are limited, so take note of the Feb. 10 deadline to submit your application. Applications received after the deadline will not be accepted.
To register for the 2023 NVSSC, visit www.summersportsclinic.va.gov to download the required documents. Eligible Veterans must register and submit their required documents at this link: NVSSC Medical Form Submission.
The National Veterans Summer Sports Clinic is designed to help Veterans whose current rehabilitation goals would benefit from the value of adaptive summer sports. The NVSSC serves Veterans living with spinal cord injuries, amputations, visual impairments, neurological conditions, PTSD, burns, and TBI/polytrauma. The clinic is open to all eligible Veterans enrolled in VA health care.
The six-day event empowers Veterans through introductory training in surfing, kayaking, cycling, sailing, yoga, meditation and adaptive fitness. The clinic offers adaptive sports for eligible Veterans of all ability levels. (Click here for highlights from the Summer Sports Clinic!)
Now in its 16th year, the National Veterans Summer Sports Clinic will welcome more than 120 Veterans from across the country. The clinic takes place annually in San Diego. The VA San Diego Healthcare System hosts the event in collaboration with Wounded Warrior Project, Veterans Canteen Service and other corporate and community organizations that value the role adaptive sports plays in helping Veterans reach new goals.
Wounded Warrior Project, the presenting sponsor of the NVSSC, is honored to work with VA to support Veterans on their journey to fitness and rehabilitation through sports. Since 2003, Wounded Warrior Project has been meeting the growing needs of warriors, their families and caregivers and helping them achieve their highest ambition.
The Veterans Canteen Service (VCS) is the founding sponsor of the NVSSC. VCS provides merchandise and services to Veterans enrolled in VA’s health care system, as well as their families, caregivers, VA employees, volunteers and visitors. VCS is honored to “give back” to VA through many programs established for the health and well-being of our nation’s heroes. Revenues generated from the Veterans Canteen Service are used to support a series of Veteran programs.
Follow VA Adaptive Sports on social media @Sports4Vets on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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How much does it cost? Air fare, hotels etc…….
IRT the Summer Sports Clinic in San Diego… Is transportation and lodging paid for by the VA?
I’m not able to pay for anything due to the financial hit by Hurricane Ian and increased cost of living.
Sounds Great!
My husband Herman passed away in April 22
Thank you for all the V A support over the years.
Sincerely,
Inge Lanzenberger
Site for the application appears to be down. :(
Lot of good things going on with the va
This sounds like something I would be interested in. I am curious about the cost though. Could you pass along any info you have about the costs and if wives are welcome.
How much does it cost? Air fare, hotels etc…….
My name is David Stanford. I am a US Army veteran. I am the Ceo of the Swooper Sidekick tennis training tool. It is a fork-shaped, hand-size, lightweight device. It fits on the top of any tennis racket. I designed this device to pick up tennis balls without bending, kneeling or squatting. Keeping You In Your Game. I would be happy to demonstrate this incredible device to assist you in your Veterans 2023 VA Summer Sport Clinic.
I am waiting for the VA adaptive sport office to do something other than send me a rejection letter.
How many senators does it take to get a VA bureaucrat to actually help a vet? How many former CEOs and Olympic athletes and fellow athletes does a vet have to get to send letters to this office before they will actually grant the funds available for veterans that compete on national teams?
It really does not matter what the vet does. It is all about the show.
What is absurd is the VA will pay someone that can’t kayak at all to go to an event in San Francisco to make a little film but the adaptive sport office requires a person that meets the requirements to be on a national team to beg for years to get the stipend funding that is supposed to be available for veterans to have assistance when they make national teams?
Like this makes a huge bunch of sense.
Whatever, send the person that learns to kayak in ten minutes to the American Canoe association and let them put them on the national team so there will be a vet so it does not appear that all the money went to waste.
Let the poor soul that the office cherry picks to be on the national team for these summer sports at least be properly funded so they are not homeless and in debt.
Make the little Olympic video and say God bless America the person has healed ain’t the VA great.
Then hang the little poster in the VA hospital for the rest of US poor souls that got hosed by the VA to look at while we are waiting for the next 20 years to get the one little pellet of care the VA has to offer.
We will all be inspired by the person’s greatness and potentially we won’t all go be thrown in prison, or become drug addicts.
It does not matter if the VA really supports the veterans as long as it looks like they support the veterans.
Well it is at least better than in Canada at least I am not calling an totally dead soul in a government office asking for help and being told that if “things are so bad the VA will offer to euthanize me like a dog”
There is that to be glad for at least.
100% correct you are!
Where is the partnership between the USOC and the VA?
This office was such crap that it virtually gave money that went unaccounted for to the USOC and NGBs for years, but when disabled veterans make national teams they get screwed over and told there is nothing?
Get real is this all the adaptive sport office provides some little show for 130 veterans?
What are all these the VA employees that get invited to this?
This is such a show! This entire office is a show. Nothing truly exists other than a little media showcase. There is no true partnership with the USOC. Had there been for real veterans like myself would not have been begging for the money and help that look like is there but isn’t when we make national teams! Get real!
How about this grand idea? Why can’t the VA just provide me with the VMAA adaptive sport stipend that I applied for the year I made the national team and sent the office my application and I will be able to actually afford to compete on the national team that I qualified to be on instead of having to eat out of a trash can at the world championships.
I don’t need to learn to kayak now nor do I need to learn to surf or do cross fit minimally. I have a sport science degree and am capable of writing my own training program. I am an ISA certified SUP instructor and I know how to surf.
Where is the funding that I applied for? Instead of all the senators getting their photos made and all the heads of the VA shaking everyone’s hand and sending me a letter as if I may be actually accommodated with the VMAA funding allowance; but then gaslight me over the situation and never actually grant the funds to the point I end up arguing for years with the sport organization to fill out forms etc; just do the job give me the funding I applied for and quit jerking me around.
The VA wishes to send me an email so I can learn to kayak now? Wow what about all the times I sent my results from world competition, when I was making efforts to gain access to the VMAA stipend? What about when I was racing at world level events having to call my Senator trying to get the funding assistance that was supposed to be available while I was having to sleep in my equipment bag and eat trash out of a trash can while competing at world level events?
Please, the VA has this great adaptive sport clinic that is in cooperation with the wounded warrior project? Get real what about the WWP where were they when I kept asking for support as a national team member. Their name was all over the USOC website like they provide help for vets. Yet when one calls to ask the WWP “does not do that”.
What a joke
Hooe we can go
I am quite surprised that the VA adaptive sport office bothers with this charade of a “sport training program”. What about all the veterans that met standards to make national teams that this office pretty much hung out to dry? Where is the support when we call and tell this office that we need assistance from all the money these sport federations get for all the competition related expenses? Does the VA expect all the veterans that pursue these sports to the elite level to end up being homeless trying to go to the Olympics? I am just curious here. The VA adaptive office in this advisement states that it: “makes sure the veterans are supported in their communities to participate in sport programs” I really am curious because when I made the national team in 2015 for canoe and kayak as a disabled veteran I was jerked around by this office.
I never got the stipend that was supposed to be available. The VA never managed to work effectively with the ACA leadership. Even when I most recently had Bob Lally the former CEO resubmit the letter he wrote to the VA. All this office could do was state my paperwork was not effectively filled out. When there was no direction from Michel Welch on the matter. What about the meetings with Senator Bennett’s office to get Amendments made so people with PTSD and TBI etc were not discriminated against? Nope this office can’t support vets for real the leadership just discourages the Vets that make it. Then throw us under the bus!
This office is yet another VA scam
So what I fail to understand here is how the VA adaptive sport office can host this type of event with the concept that the Adaptive sport office: “wishes to encourage veterans to pursue healthy activities etc” Yet those veterans who make National teams get jerked around for years trying to gain access to the Veterans sport stipends that are supposed to be available. Then the Adaptive sport office who is “so supportive on the veterans journey to health and fitness” fails to properly support the veterans that do pursue these sports to elite levels with the required support needed for veterans to be successful. No interface with the sport federations. In fact will there be any representatives from the sport governing organizations at this event? Will properly trained coaches and facilitators be there? Does the VA adaptive sport office actually help veterans for real to pursue these sports when they get home? One can not assume that someone will be proficient enough to participate over the long term just from a one week camp. This quite frankly looks like a publicity stunt by the adaptive sport office to look like the do something.