Post Business

By Harold Rodenberger

Last week another visitor came into my office asking where to find our clubroom. As always, I tell such visitors we don’t have a bar but that we do many other things for veterans, their families and our community.

For those readers who haven’t had a chance to attend meetings or join in our outreach efforts, here’s how our national headquarters describes out mission:

Our Mission: To foster camaraderie among United States veterans of overseas conflicts. To serve our veterans, the military and our communities. To advocate on behalf of all veterans.

Locally, we help fulfill this mission in many ways.

First, we take care of our own members and their families. Last month, for example, we donated from our relief fund to help a member whose young daughter is being treated for cancer; we routinely subsidize the meals served at our social and meeting nights; we maintain a library on military subjects for veterans; and our service officer gives top priority to helping our members get the benefits they have earned from the VA and other government agencies.

For other veterans and members of the community we operate a website, manage a Facebook page and publish a newsletter publicizing specialized information for our community; we visit the VA Hospital to bring a little cheer to the patients; we allow other veterans’ organizations to use our hall at no cost and allow nonprofit organizations of many kinds to rent our hall at minimal rates.

For the larger local community, we accept unserviceable flags for proper retirement and disposal, we donate food and other items to our local homeless camp and we visit local retirement homes. Our Color Guard has performed color-posting ceremonies in several venues and is scheduled for more.

Next time someone asks you what our members do besides drink and tell war stories, please let them know the many ways we support the VFW mission by serving veterans and our community.

We have been publishing this newsletter for almost three years now. It draws praise from members, other VFW members and readers in the community but we have found that those who receive the on-line edition don’t read the paper as much as we would like. To encourage more people to read the newsletter we are going to a quarterly printed publication mailed to all our members.

Our website and Facebook page will carry breaking stories as they develop. The printed newsletter will consolidate that news and carry it to all members.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families.

You may remember the story of Comrade Evan Turner’s daughter, Lillian, who was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, Stage 4S in April.

Post 3063 voted to donate $500 to Evan and his family to help with her fight against cancer. The check was presented to the Turner family during the post’s monthly business meeting Oct. 5, 2017. We are ecstatic to report that Lillian’s prognosis is good and she’s a true warrior in her fight against cancer!

If you would like to donate to Lillian’s fight, go to https://www.gofundme.com/lillians-battle-with-neuroblastoma and updates are posted at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1936194449992290/.

Post 3063 presented a Legacy Life Membership to Comrade Michael Lawrence for his exemplary service and tremendous generosity at the October business meeting on Oct. 5, 2017.

Mike headed up the post’s visits to the Seattle VA Medical Center for numerous years and donated large amounts of money to the VFW Children’s Home and Post 3063 Relief Fund. He is the epitome of a veteran serving veterans and his impact will be felt for years to come. Thank you, Mike!

Mike made a heartfelt appeal that a Post 3063 comrade step up and take charge of the VA Volunteer Coordinator position. The Seattle VAMC needs our help! Please contact Commander Krawitz if interested.

By Pete Krawitz

What a great way to end the summer. We pulled off a very successful spaghetti dinner and raffle event, raising over $4K for our various programs. A huge thank you to all who made this event a success. A special thank you to Comrade Russ Seelig, his wife, Kay, and their friends and family who volunteered a significant amount of time coordinating the event.

I’d also like to acknowledge the great work our color guard is doing. Many of you had a chance to witness the color guard in action during the Spaghetti Dinner. The team looked sharp! As of late, we’ve been receiving many requests for our color guard to conduct ceremonies at various events in the region. We are not only honoring our veterans, flag, and country during these events but are also increasing Post 3063’s visibility in the community. I’d like to thank all of the members of the color guard for their hard work and dedication. I’d also like to thank Comrades Bill Hoeller and Joe Fitzgerald for their hard work in planning, equipping, and leading the color guard. For those who might be interested in joining, please reach out to Comrade Joe Fitzgerald (colorguard@vfwseattle.org).

We’ve also been pretty fortunate to attract quite a few new members over the past few months. Many of these new members have dove right in and have been assisting with some of the activities around the post. To some of the newer members, we still have a few committees that I’d like to see brought online. The Community Activities and Scholarship committees in particular. If you are interested in leading either of these committees, please let me know.

Changing gears ever so slightly, I’d like to discuss one project that we will be working on over the next few months. As many of you know, we’ve been discussing the idea of refurbishing the post for a few years now. The purpose of a refurbishment would be to make the facility more attractive, comfortable, and accessible for our members and also increase the hall’s rental desirability and value. Before we can make any proposals on the refurbishment front, we’ve determined that we need a better understanding of our current situation. Over the next few months, I’ll be working hand-in-hand with the house committee and quartermaster to analyze our facility’s operation and maintenance situation. While the post’s finances are relatively stable, we want to ensure that we are planning accordingly and maintain this stability for many years to come. To keep our finances healthy, especially in this rapidly changing and expensive city, we need to make sure that we can adapt to the changing needs and preferences of our communities, both the veteran community and the Ballard / Seattle community. We will be sharing regular updates as we make progress with our analysis.

I look forward to seeing you at our next business meeting.

Ballard Eagleson VFW Post 3063’s October 2017 newsletter is available for download here. Highlights include September Spaghetti Fundraiser Nets $4K for Relief Fund; 105 year-old WWII Vet Joins Post During Birthday Party; Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen Essays due Oct. 31; and Veteran Designation Available for WA State Driver’s Licenses.