On Thursday, November 9, Mrs. Ella Rue-Eyet spoke at the Scotch Plains Library to speak about her charity art collection entitled “52 Reasons to Love a Vet”.
The collection was inspired by her son, Justin, who served in the army. He came back from his service time with a great amount of PTSD and a blood condition known as MRSA. However, Justin had no insurance and was unable to receive proper treatment. Ella as able to pull some strings and get him the necessary treatment, but she realized that not every veteran had that same opportunity.
She used this experience to create a way to raise awareness for veterans who are unable to get insurance and proper medical treatment. Her idea was to create a collection of art pieces that represent was armed forces life was like from a variety of angles.
The charity is able to give out $1,000 to veterans hoping to get quality insurance coverage.
She approached some artist friends of hers to create this series as a deck of cards, with the face cards illustrated and the number cards having facts and statistics about the army life and the difficulty to get insurance.
“Once I knew one person would do it, I knew it was a good idea.” explained Rue-Eyet.
The series has been converted into a real life deck of cards as well as a book. These are available for purchase, with the proceeds going to benefit veterans.