By Harold Rodenberger
Last year was a good one for our post. We passed one hundred per cent membership in early January and ended the year at 107.81 per cent of our calculated membership for the previous year.
Our post shared in a special honor when our outgoing commander, Aaron Stoltz, was selected as an All State Commander. The white hat that goes with this honor is the first won by any commander or quartermaster of our post during the thirty-five years I have been a member. Congratulations Commander Stoltz!
In addition to those mentioned in last month’s column, other milestones marking the past year:
- We made some necessary repairs to our old building and it continues to serve us as a good post home which is the envy of many VFW Posts who don’t have a place of their own.
- We rebuilt the wooden stairs leading to the upstairs office and completed the remodel of that office space so it is now ready to be leased, preferably to a non-profit looking for some prime Ballard office space.
- Our newsletter, Ballard Eagleson Patriot, under the editorship of Charles Anderson, was awarded second place in the medium size post category. Quite an honor for the first year of publication.
- Our Post lending library is well organized and has grown under the watchful eye of Librarian Bill Hoeller.
- We hosted two very successful fund raising dinners, the St. Patrick’s Day dinner chaired by Georgia Warrix and the May 1st Spaghetti Dinner chaired by Russ Seelig.
- We have helped the residents of the homeless tent city next door with many gifts of food.
Not to rest on our laurels, we look forward to even more activity:
- Our Service Officer, Gail Engler, in addition to being available in our own office, will be staffing an office in the Ballard Senior Center once a month to help veterans in this community.
- Even more visits to local hospitals, nursing and retirement homes.
- More Flag retirement ceremonies.
- Occasional visitations to other posts to attend their meetings and share lessons learned.
- Some special events at our post to honor our local first responders.
In addition to these plans, we will see more fund raisers and other special dinners this year as we raise awareness among our members and in our neighborhood that we are a growing post involved in doing good for veterans and our community.