The Robert J. Dole VA Homeless Program needs your help. A shortage of federal funding left the homeless program without move-in kits this year.

The kits are crucial to vets in need. These move-in kits are filled with basic necessities that may not seem like much but to a veteran moving from homelessness into a home, these kits are a lifesaver.

Angela Fuson, a Navy veteran who served in the Gulf War, helps load the mattress the VA Homeless Program is giving her to go in her new apartment.

“The homeless program said we have a place for you,” Fuson recalls about the conversation that led to her getting a place to stay. “Where you can transition for a couple of months to get you back on track get you into some therapy and we’ll help you get started again,”

It’s a move-in kit filled with essentials like paper towels and shower curtains to help veterans like Fuson.

But this year due to a funding shortage, the local VA didn’t receive any.

Kits that Suzanne Jenkins says are necessary.

” When you move into a place and you have nothing, you

have nothing to put your trash in, you have nothing to cook on, you don’t

have a shower curtain to even take a shower, you’re not going to be

successfull in housing,” said Suzzane Jenkins, VA Homeless Program Supervisor.

Some VA employees have donated items to help, but the empty shelves show more is needed.

” So we’re really reaching out to the community, “we know it takes an entire community to end Veteran Homelessness, we can’t do it by ourselves,” said Jenkins.

Helping veterans make a house a home.

“I’m so thankful and get to make my new abode a home and really homey,” said Fuson. ” So, it’s going to help me to continue to move forward.”

If you would like to help, drop off donations at Building 5 at the VA Medical Center weekdays from 8 a.m. To 4 p.m. The address to the center is 5500 E Kellogg Ave, Wichita, KS 67218.

You can also donate money to the United for Veterans Fund through United Way.

Donations to the fund may be made to United Way of the Plains at 245 N. Water, Wichita, KS 67202 with U4V on the memo line.

The VA Medical Center listed the items in need on its Facebook page shown below.