Alpha Omega Veterans Services (AOVS) provides assistance for more than 140 veterans daily through six facilities and eight programs.
AOVS was founded in 1987 by a mother of two sons who, after serving in Vietnam, returned home suffering from what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After finding nothing to help her sons, she opened one of the first facilities in the United States to offer supportive services to displaced and disabled veterans in a humble duplex in south Memphis.
Within one year, this upstart nonprofit began serving eight additional veterans. AOVS was the first organization of its kind in Memphis.
There is no other agency in the area surrounding AOVS that offers programs and housing specifically to homeless, disabled and displaced veterans in the scope that we do. Our comprehensive programs have a success rate of 95 percent, and we have served nearly 11,000 veterans in our 31 years.
The Mission
Our mission is “helping veterans help themselves.”
AOVS provides disabled, displaced and homeless veterans with any and all services needed to totally reintegrate back into society. We serve veterans at our six supportive housing facilities and a leasing program in Memphis. Services include transitional supportive housing, permanent supportive housing, and Life House (our care home for our medically fragile veterans). Our Madison facility also provides a drop-in center, which offers meals to anyone who is hungry, showers, phone calls, bus tokens and referrals to all veterans in need. Our services include, but are not limited to, food, shelter, clothing, referrals for education, individual and group counseling, training and job placement.
What would you do with 100 volunteer hours and $5,000?
There are many volunteer opportunities at Alpha Omega. From working on outdoor farm activities to clerical help in our administrative offices – and everything in between – our volunteers help further the AOVS mission. We have even had groups provide cookouts, fishing trips and game nights for our heroes.