Ford Donates Eight New Flex Crossovers To Disabled American Veterans Transport Network

Ford has donated eight new Flex crossover utility vehicles to the Disabled American Veterans Transportation Network fleet, bringing the total number of vehicles Ford has provided the DAV over the years to 215.

Disabled American Veterans is a US organization that assists disabled military veterans and their families. Its Transportation Network helps arrange transit to doctor and hospital visits, using volunteer drivers. Six of the eight new Ford Flex CUVs will be put to use by the DAV Transportation Network in Augusta, Georgia; Des Moines, Iowa; Topeka, Kansas; Asheville, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee; and Waco, Texas. New Orleans, Louisiana will receive the remaining two.

According to Ford, its vehicles last year transported nearly 700k disabled veterans to essential health care appointments in the US. The automaker’s relationship with the DAV started way back in 1922, after World War I, when Ford put together a caravan of 50 Model T cars to transport disabled vets from around the country to the national convention of what was then named the “Disabled American Veterans of the World War” (DAVWW). The organization’s Transportation Network was founded decades later in 1987, helping transport more than 18 million vets to VA health facilities in the US in that time.

“Without Ford’s generosity and the hard work of our volunteers, we would not have been able to provide nearly 700,000 rides for veterans last year alone,” says DAV National Commander Dave Riley. “Ford vehicles are crisscrossing the country for veterans, traveling almost 23 million miles every year to make certain our heroes can access the care they earned.”

The Ford Motor Company Fund is assisting military veterans in other ways, too, like supporting the DAV Jesse Brown Memorial Youth Scholarship, which gives grants to young men and women who have volunteered to help disabled vets in their own communities. The Fund is also a sponsor of the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic – an annual program held in Colorado that helps rehabilitate injured veterans through skiing, skating, and rock climbing.