Category: News

How the VFW stays tax-exempt: Community Service

By Harold Rodenberger

 

Since our founding as a federally chartered organization in 1899, our members have worked to help veterans and their families, to further patriotism and Americanism, and to help our communities. Because these goals are part of our mission the Internal Revenue Service has granted us tax-exempt status under the provisions of Section 501 (c) (19) of the tax code.

 

To maintain our tax-exempt status, each month we report community service performed by our members. Reports from the posts and districts are forwarded to and consolidated by the departments and from there forwarded to our national headquarters. To make these reports more complete we ask that each of our members forward qualifying actions so as much as possible can be included each month.

 

You might be surprised to learn that many things you do should be included so please make a note to compile and forward your contributions in the following areas.

 

Community Service: Activities that benefit your community, parks or neighborhood such as:

  • Recycling
  • Picking up trash
  • Beautification projects
  • Monetary donations to a local park, farmers’ market, or similar.

 

Citizenship Education and Americanism: Participation in:

  • Parades
  • Patriotic holiday events
  • Public ceremonies
  • Presenting flags or educational materials
  • Attending funerals
  • POW/MIA activities
  • Loyalty Day activities
  • Legislative activities
  • Flying the American Flag (please specify lighted or unlit)
  • Participation in Color/Honor Guard activities or placing flags on veterans’ graves.

 

Aid to Others:

  • Hospital and nursing home visits
  • Visits with senior citizens or house-bound neighbors
  • Donations of care packages
  • Helping to organize a blood drive or individual donations of blood, platelets or plasma
  • Fundraising or assisting to build handicapped ramps or other home repairs and transporting others to doctors or hospital visits
  • Donations of money or materials to the needy or thrift stores or other charitable organizations (please itemize so we can assign dollar values)
  • Donations to homeless or to organizations that help the homeless and other charitable causes such as the USO, cancer society, March of Dimes, etc.

 

Youth Activities:

  • Assisting at schools as guest speaker, volunteer coaching
  • Donating money, materials or time to support Scouts, children’s sports or band functions
  • Helping with Special Olympics or other help for special students or children.

 

Voice of Democracy, Youth Essay and Patriotic Art:

  • Donations of time and money to locate, encourage and assist students to enter the VFW Voice of Democracy, Patriot’s Pen, Youth Essay and Patriotic Art contests.

 

Safety:

  • Giving or attending classes or time and money spent to encourage safety, broken down by pedestrian, drug awareness, recreational, highway, fire or home safety.

 

Military Assistance:

  • Any support given to a military unit, individual, or family member
  • Sponsoring or attending “welcome home” ceremonies and other ceremonies honoring the military

 

District 2 convenes meeting at Post 3063

By Harold Rodenberger

 

District 2 meeting
From left, Officer of the Day Thom Fermstad, Commander Tiffany Bothell, Surgeon Linda Fairbank, and Quartermaster Richard Moore conduct District 2 business Sept. 24 at Post 3063.

On Sept. 24 District 2 met at our post for its quarterly meeting and School of Instruction.

 

In the Department of Washington there are 108 posts divided into thirteen districts. Our post is part of District 2, which also includes Rainier (2289), Farwell Roosevelt (2713), Vashon (2826), Blackburn-Aurora (3348), Burien (4314), and Seattle (6599) Posts.

 

Each district serves as an intermediate level of administration between the individual posts and the department headquarters. District officers guide the posts by answering questions, training and inspecting as necessary. The School of Instruction conducted at this meeting helped train post level officers.

 

Another important function of the district is to screen entries for VFW programs including those for scouts, teachers, first responders and veteran of the year among others, and forward the winners to department level.

 

Our next district meeting will be on Nov. 19 at Farewell-Roosevelt Post 2713 in West Seattle. Lunch is served at 11:30 a.m. and the meeting starts at 12:30 p.m. All post members are invited to attend.

Voice of Democracy scholarship deadline is Nov. 1

Each year, nearly 40,000 high school students from across the country enter to win a share of $2 million in educational scholarships and incentives awarded through the VFW’s Voice of Democracy audio-essay competition.

 

The VFW established the Voice of Democracy program (VOD) in 1947 to provide students grades 9-12 the opportunity to express themselves in regards to democratic ideas and principles.

Voice of Democracy Graphic

The national first-place winner receives a $30,000 scholarship paid directly to the recipient’s American university, college or vocational/technical school. Other national scholarships range from $1,000-$16,000, and the first-place winner from each (state) VFW Department wins a minimum scholarship of $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C.

 

2016-17 THEME: MY RESPONSIBILITY TO AMERICA

 

Students should record their reading of the draft to an audio CD or flash drive. The recording can be no shorter than three minutes and no longer than five minutes (plus or minus five seconds).

 

Entries begin at the post level. Once the student creates their essay and completes burning the audio version to an audio CD/flash drive, they can submit their typed version, CD/flash drive and the Voice of Democracy entry form to their local participating VFW Post by the November 1 deadline.

 

Students who submit an essay to Post 3063 automatically receive a $50 prize!

 

For more information regarding the scholarship application process, go to https://www.vfw.org/uploadedFiles/VFWorg/MY_VFW/VoiceofDemocracyEntryFormandBrochure.pdf.

 

State of Women Veterans social media campaign launched

The Department of Veterans Affairs published a press release announcing a social media campaign about women veterans going on now through Veterans Day. It aims to raise awareness about contributions of women veterans.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 1, 2016

 

State of Women Veterans Social Media Campaign Launched

 

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is partnering with Women Veterans Interactive (WVI) to launch a State of Women Veterans’ social media campaign. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of women Veterans’ military and societal contributions and provide an avenue for informing women Veterans about the VA benefits they have earned.

 

“This campaign is a collaborative effort to establish partnerships with nonprofit organizations that advocate and provide assistance on behalf of women Veterans,” said Kayla Williams, Director of VA’s Center for Women Veterans. “We are elated to be partnering with WVI in this important initiative. The new State of Women Veterans’ social media campaign offers another way to connect with women Veterans to raise awareness about VA care and benefits and to encourage collaborative partnerships.”

 

The campaign will conclude over the Veterans Day weekend and will be recognized and featured during a WVI- sponsored event in November.

 

For more information or to join in the conversation, follow @DeptVetAffairs on Twitter, like the Department of Veterans Affairs Facebook page and use the hashtag State of #WomenVets.

 

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Report on the VFW National Convention

By Harold Rodenberger

 

Our National Convention was held in Charlotte, NC, July 23-27 2016. Four members of our post attended: Commander Nestor Tamayao, Trustee and Past Commander, Aaron Stoltz, Quartermaster and Past Commander Harold Rodenberger, and delegate Jesse Basher.

 

This convention is the supreme authority of our organization, and as such acts through the delegates to enact and modify laws governing how our group operates. People are appointed as our leaders and enact various goals and programs for the current and future years.

 

This year there were almost one hundred proposed amendments and revisions to be considered and voted on by our convention.

 

In addition to the changes in our governing documents there were many other items of business. We heard speakers ranging from the Mayor of Charlotte to the Secretary of the VA to both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. We presented our VFW awards, and the winners are listed on our VFW National website at vfw.org

 

One of the main functions of the convention is to elect and install our leaders for the ensuing year. This year we elected Brian Duffy as our Commander in Chief. Chief Duffy is the first Desert Storm veteran to hold that office. We also elected another Desert Storm veteran and the first female to hold the office, Karen Anderson, as our new Quartermaster General.