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Grant will help assist veterans with job training and employment placement

Inspired by the hit video game Call of Duty, the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE) announced today that it will donate $25,000 to Swords to Plowshares, to help fund their employment training programs and career placement services, which provide assistance to recently returning veterans in the San Francisco Bay and Oakland areas. Swords to Plowshares is a community-based, not-for-profit organization that provides counseling, case management, employment training, and placement assistance to thousands of veterans annually in the San Francisco Bay Area.

CODE is a non-profit, public benefit corporation, which was created by Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) in November 2009. The organization seeks to help veterans transitioning to civilian life find work and establish careers and to assist other organizations that provide job placement and training.

BG Harry Sieben, USANG-Ret., a member of the CODE advisory council explained why Swords to Plowshares was chosen to receive the grant: “As America looks to celebrate Independence Day, it is imperative that we support those organizations which provide our veterans with a means to find rewarding careers and their own independence once their military service is complete. Since its inception, Swords’ has assisted thousands of veterans in getting off the unemployment line and we are honored to provide them with this grant.”

Sieben added, “Swords to Plowshares’ models for providing training and employment assistance to veterans have been praised by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Labor, and we know these resources will go directly to this grave issue of veterans’ unemployment that is facing our nation as more and more service members return home from abroad.”

In addition to providing employment training for veterans and providing them with individual case managers to help with a veteran’s career search, Swords to Plowshares works directly with numerous employers in the Bay area to secure placement for veterans employment, including Berkeley National Laboratory, City Electric Supply, PG&E, and Allied Barton, to name a few. Swords to Plowshares also holds an annual career fair for veterans each Fall, which requires participating businesses to have a variety of openings at multiple levels of placement prior to joining the event.

Michael Blecker, Executive Director of Swords to Plowshares, said the grant is a necessary step to ensure that more veterans in the Bay area are served: “We have several avenues that assist veterans who participate in our programs to find fulfilling careers after their service is complete.

The funding provided by the Call of Duty Endowment will ensure that we can continue to provide the face-to-face counseling for our veterans, which is critical in the effort to connect them with local employers that want to utilize their experiences as proven leaders and superior skill sets.”

This past spring, the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate last year for young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans was at 21.1 percent, almost double the national average.