The American Council on Exercise (ACE) has launched a new program to give thousands of men and women leaving the U.S. Armed Forces the opportunity to continue to serve their nation in an important new way. ACE’s Salute You™
Scholarship will prepare honorably discharged military personnel to start an all-new career as an ACE-certified personal trainer.
Free of charge to selected candidates, ACE will provide study materials, registration for the ACE Personal Trainer Certification exam, and one-on-one study assistance. The organization is committing 1,000 such scholarships in 2013 alone. ACE is pursuing partners to help increase that commitment in 2014 and beyond.
More than two-thirds of U.S. veterans consider finding a job the greatest challenge in transitioning to civilian life, and their frustrations are well documented. Unemployment among veterans aged 18-24 is a staggering 17.7 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Salute You Scholarship is aimed at alleviating that battle among the 300,000 service members expected to cycle out of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard in the next five years. Eligible scholarship recipients will be those servicemen and women who have been discharged within six months of their application date.
“This is our way of honoring and helping those men and women who’ve served our nation so courageously,” said Scott Goudeseune, the president and CEO of ACE. “We are providing new veterans with a no-cost opportunity to place themselves on a promising career path in a growing industry. It’s a career path that makes perfect sense for them because of their prevailing sense of duty and natural inclination to serve. The respect they command, and the courage they exhibit, will prove invaluable as our industry marches more directly into accountability in the fight against the obesity epidemic. ACE wants to help far more people forge and live their most fit lives, and these young heroes will help us to do that.”
Applications for the scholarship are currently being accepted online at ACEfitness.org/military.
In an effort to fund more Salute You scholarships well past this year, ACE is looking for corporate sponsors. For more information on joining the effort, contact Victoria Kreutzkamp, the vice president of business development for ACE, at Victoria@ACEfitness.org or 858.576.6573.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
