Category: Post Business

There’s a new chef in town

Kay Seelig is the new chef for our third Thursday socials. You may remember Kay from the great tasting spaghetti she made for some of our fundraisers.

 

Kay brings a wealth of cooking experience to this new gig. She has cooked both as a hobby and as a professional and once cooked her way through Julia Child’s famed 100 Master Recipes from “The Way To Cook” in a single year.

 

Over the coming months you will experience menus ranging from the merely wonderful to the near exotic. We will publicize her selections via our newsletter and website so you can check in advance to see what delicacy will be served next.

 

Kay wants to be as inclusive of special needs as possible. If you have a food allergy or other special dietary resection let us know at least a week in advance of the social and Kay will provide alternatives where possible.

 

Post raises $1.2K for VFW National Home for Children during business meeting

During December’s Business Meeting, the regular call was made for VFW National Home for Children donations, but with a twist. An anonymous donor would match whatever amount members contributed to the pot. The pot made the rounds and Quartermaster Harold Rodenberger tallied the donations.

 

Knowing that their contributions would be matched, members continued to chip more in while Harold counted and the final tally came to $620, for a grand total $1,240 donation! The post thanks the members and the anonymous donor for their generosity!

 

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.

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.