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 VFW-SVA Legislative Fellowship program. Now in its ninth year, the fellowship will bring select student veterans – who must be VFW members – to Washington early next March to meet face to face with their members of Congress and senior policymakers.
Student veterans interested in applying for the 2023 VFW-SVA Legislative Fellowship must complete an application package that includes a 400 – 600-word essay and a short video that proposes legislative improvements to one of four specific veterans’ issues:
- Student veteran success on campus and beyond
- Improving veterans’ health care and benefits
- Transition from military to civilian life
- Challenges for service members and military families
The essay proposal should include a discussion of why the issue is important to the veterans’ community, and how the fellowship candidate plans to address the issue through federal policy solutions and community-based advocacy.
VFW-SVA Legislative Fellowship opportunities are open to all currently enrolled student veterans. Fellowship candidates must be VFW members in order to be considered. Eligibility criteria can be found here. Selected fellows will attend and participate in the SVA National Conference in Orlando, Florida, Jan. 5-7, 2023. 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 upcoming VFW Legislative Conference, March 5-9, 2023.
All applications must be submitted by midnight on Oct 15. Selected fellows will be notified before Thanksgiving, with a formal announcement of the 2023 fellowship class at the SVA National Conference in Orlando, Florida, in January. For full details about the VFW-SVA fellowship and to apply, visit VFW.org/StudentFellowship or contact Tammy Barlet, VFW, at tbarlet@vfw.org or Lauren Augustine, SVA, at lauren.augustine@studentveterans.org.