Upcoming Meeting + Sept Minutes
Improved minutes readability
The Next Commanders Coalition Meeting will be Wednesday, 4 October 2023 at 10AM.
Thank you for your feedback regarding the minutes. I’ve never written minutes before so this is a learning experience. I have tried to put each speaker and their organization in bold.
~Edward W. Hood
Please rise.
Colors are in place.
Present arms.
Ready to... I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,
Well, we've had a lucky dodge for most of us.
The mag lab helped us out again.
And for the guys in Monticello, we look forward to hearing what you got and what you need, if anything.
Brooklyn, you want to go ahead and start?
All right.
Good morning, everybody.
Welcome to our
Monthly Meeting.
My name is Brooklyn.
I work with CareerSource.
I work with veterans and we also work with everybody with employment needs.
We do have a couple events coming up in November.
I know it's not quite there but want to get it on your radar.
It looks like we have one more stand down that
We have to put on our list that we also have PrEP for vets and also Paycheck for Patriots.
So if you know of any veterans who need assistance with getting employment, please come up and see me afterwards.
Thank you very much.
Good morning.
Frank Roy, for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
As I mentioned before, I'm the new commander of the post, building off what other people have done.
We're going through a reorganization and it's always a little bit of a challenge
The good news is our reorganization is people are staying with us.
In other words, we're not throwing anybody out.
As I say, a lot of good things are happening.
We've got some good donations for some new bar stools.
So we're fixing the place up a little bit.
It's an old building that we're in.
It's been there for a long time.
It's served us well.
But like anything that's old, it needs repairs.
Sort of like some of us do.
As I say, a lot of things are happening.
We're doing a lot of good reorganization.
What we do in our financial situation, we found out that things are good, so all the things are really working for us.
Thank you.
I always get concerned.
All right, appreciate it.
So basically that's all I've got.
Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 3308, we're doing good.
Major Morale has given us a wonderful boost here.
They've given us a whole page in their publication.
Our first
Information that's coming out is actually about the Veterans of Foreign Wars because a lot of people around this room know what the Veterans of Foreign Wars are but other people don't.
As I said, things are good.
Thank you all.
I'm Paul Rogerson from AMVETS.
I just wanted to thank you guys for finally getting a microphone on the system in.
Now I can understand what half the things are going on.
You got to use it.
All right.
Thank you.
David Wilson, the Air Force Association and AMVETS.
I put one of these brochures on each table and on September 24th we're going to visit Memory Gardens.
There are six men buried there that died in Vietnam.
And we will leave a hero rock on the grave with the man's name on it.
We'll leave a memory rock and we'll also leave a flag.
We hope to get as many young people there as possible.
And I put one of these on every table so if anybody needs an extra, I brought some extras here.
So hope to see you on the 24th.
That's 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday afternoon.
Ed Gifford, Commander of Post 49, American Legion in Monticello.
Yes, we did survive the hurricane.
No damage to the building, just a lot of them knocked down here and there.
Had lost power for about two or three days, that was it.
Slowly power's coming back to the community, to the residents of Jefferson County.
There's still a few people out there, but the majority of everyone's gotten their power back.
The community's really pulled together with various functions for free dinners,
Free breakfasts, lunches, whatnot.
I mean, everyone was offering food and assistance to the folks that needed it that were without power.
So I want to thank everyone for everything you've done for our county.
We're recovering pretty well, much better than I would hate to say it, but for Madison and Taylor County, they really took the blunt of the hurricane.
They're still having issues, so please have them in your prayers and think about them.
For what we're doing at Post 489, on the 30th we have a fish fry.
It's a Saturday, so you're all invited.
It's in the afternoon, more information to follow.
We're going to be hosting a POW ceremony on the 15th of this month at The Post where we get the homeschoolers from the county and they will help us go through a ceremony which symbolically builds the POW table.
Each child will have an element that goes on the table and bring it up and we explain what that represents and so we'll be doing that.
We did it last year and it's very well received.
What we got going on this weekend, we got Highway 59 Band.
It's a band that comes to our post once a month.
They will be playing this Saturday at our post.
And that's basically all I have.
We need the other two people.
Well, besides Ben, we need your adjutant to introduce himself.
He's new here.
Hold the microphone kind of close.
Not all the way.
There you go.
Right there?
Okay.
A little closer.
Okay.
Kenny T. I'm the adjutant for Post 49.
I'm a little bit new to this area.
I've been in Florida for several years, but I moved up from Largo, Florida and didn't act committed to it.
Nice climate up here.
So, enjoying being back with the Legion.
Have been active with the VFW for about 50 years, so I'm just enjoying life up here.
Thank you.
Colonel Ben Ring-Belsky from the FAMU and FSU Navy ROTC unit.
I have nothing to pass.
I guess I'll introduce myself.
Kent Faircloth I'm a past commander in Post 49.
I'm from Long Island and now I'm serving as Vice Commander.
Get going real quick.
Good morning, Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
My name is Miria Alexander Kweyama.
I'm originally from Monticello.
I'm a member of the Gold Star family.
I'm district president of District 2, which covers six cities at this particular time, and I have no information to pass to you.
Good morning, Gordon Lightfoot, Amvets, and other organizations.
Sorry for being late again.
I don't really have much of a report.
We're working.
We've got an impact meeting tomorrow night.
We're still looking for a few docents.
We're fixing to pull the trigger on our military heritage trail project.
And if you're interested in working with us and attending the tour that we do, and we've got a number of people up in here already participating, but we're fixing to do a training tour for all the docents.
If you're interested, get in touch with me after the meeting today.
Thank you.
Good morning.
My name is Tina Reason and I have a couple things to share.
Number one, I will never break out my son's pictures like I did last time.
He was thoroughly mortified when I told him because he came to visit right after.
Anyway, we are moving forward with the canine care for veterans.
We've got a couple of meetings set up with lobbyists who are helping us write the appropriations bill.
And then there's also been a suggestion that it go under a member, which I don't know what that means, an existing
The second thing is probably unrelated, but I think it may be a great opportunity.
We all are aware of the gun violence that's happening in Tallahassee, so I attended a prayer meeting that consisted of every kind of religion you can think of and just people who are concerned about the welfare of our community.
My suggestion is, we have veterans who care about their community, but they also care about their own families, and this would be an opportunity to join.
And what came to my mind is, if you're interested, you can talk to me afterwards, but what I'm thinking is, at high school football games, that if we had a presence there, that military presence along with prayer warriors,
could show that there was another way to go.
And I'm not trying to mix religion, please don't think that.
What I'm trying to do is come up with a way to deter the crime and gun violence within our community and letting our youth see that there is another way.
And you guys are examples, especially my older black veterans that
We all have grown up differently.
We don't know what each other's been through, but we all have a gift to give and pass on.
So if you want to talk to me more about that and hopefully change some lives, I'd appreciate that opportunity.
Good morning.
Suzy Caplow Tallahassee Veterans Legal Collaborative,
and I'm a volunteer there coordinating a lot of the community service and kind of run the office when we're here, which is tomorrow.
So if you want to drop in between,
3 and 5 and see what we do would be great.
I want to thank James and Mary Labatt because when Dan did the all call, there's Mary, to get us a trailer so we could keep doing our food distribution.
The Labatt family came through and donated a trailer to us and it's awesome and we really appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
And also we do a farm share
food distribution three times a month and we go to a lot of different locations every Wednesday and we got Vet Village as a regular drop we do home from Vet Village and a whole lot of other places and thank you so much to many of you who have donated to us please keep it coming because we still got a lot of veterans that need help with the driver's license conversions and can you can imagine not having a driver's license you can't do anything so
Thank you very much.
Gail, no report.
Fred Engley, MOAA, nothing to report except with my great hearing as you all laugh, we can all laugh about, I really appreciate this microphone.
I finally understand what people are saying out there and it's awful hard to read lips across the room.
Y'all have a great day now.
Good morning everyone.
I'm David Esposito.
I'm with the Patriot Guard Riders.
I want to thank Fred Engley for suggesting that I come and speak this morning over here.
For those of you who never heard of the Patriot Guard Riders, we founded in 2005 because it was found that there was a need to keep uninvited guests from protesting at veterans and first responders funerals.
Well, we were there basically to keep the peace.
We are very active in this area.
I'm the Assistant Ride Captain in District 3, which is basically the central panhandle.
It goes from around Jasper, that area, all the way west to just this side of Pensacola.
Well, it's a very large area that I'm responsible for.
We are shorthanded.
I'm here to encourage if you would like to join, we would be honored to have you.
You don't need to be a veteran.
You don't need to ride a motorcycle.
You just need respect.
And we support veterans' families.
We have missions coming up.
We'll be at the 9-1-1 Memorial on 9-11.
We have a mission coming up in Tallahassee National Cemetery for the Prisoners of War and Missing in Action.
Commemoration on the 15th and also on the 27th we have at the Tallahassee National Cemetery a final salute.
That's a quarterly thing and that's for veterans that somehow did not receive full military honors when they were interred.
Again, I'd like to thank you.
I have some paperwork, but I think I have enough here for one table.
I'm not sure.
I didn't know if I could do that when I got here.
Thank you again for having me come and God bless you all.
The 27th and also the 15th.
The time on the 15th
That's 9-11 at 8 a.m.
or 8, yeah, and then the 15th is 8 p.m.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Morning.
Mark Dickey, Marine Corps League
Toys for Tots campaign will be kicking off the 1st of October.
The League is a local sponsor of the Tallahassee campaign, and we still have a few
Chris Wilson with Major Morale.
If you haven't seen one of these, you can leave your address of the rock you've been living under and I'll mail you one next month.
Otherwise, you can pick it up today
We did change up the center military section a little bit and the whole purpose of that was to let the general public know what was going on in the veteran community to start with.
Next month there'll be an additional page that goes strictly to major morale.
and that's going to highlight the smaller VSOs like the Toys for Tots stuff.
He needs to have at least an eighth of a page blurb in there that the general public could read about with a website that you can cram a whole lot more information onto.
My email address is on the top right hand corner of every paper like a fool.
I get about 200 emails a day I wouldn't mind 201 but it comes out monthly I need your information if you wanted to go on the majors page by the 16th and we can work up you can email me I'll send you a sample of the amount of text and space and graphics
It's not a big deal.
Everybody gets all freaked out about how to do it.
If John can do it, anybody can do it.
That's all I got right now.
And I know every group in this room is having stuff from now until Christmas.
So
If you don't send it to me, you can't get the biggest shot.
There's 10,000 copies of that thing going out every month.
Ed Hood, local volunteer of several organizations.
I just wanted to take a second to talk about Commanders Coalition, which is what this group is.
So when I was in the Air Force, I had a superior come to me and one day he said, Ed, or Sergeant Hood, sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.
So with that being said and inspired by John's vision of Commanders Coalition uniting our veteran service organizations to be one unified platform to serve the veterans in our community, I set up a newsletter which is on the table, Commanders Coalition.
Now the QR code goes directly to that site and you can enter your email address there.
Now the vision here is that with our monthly meetings we can push out
The information that you all are bringing to the meetings each month, whether you're having a fundraiser, no matter what you're doing, if it's serving veterans, it can go out on this newsletter.
And right now, and this is why this is so important, okay, about holding the mic close to your mouth, because some of us wore 3M earplugs in Afghanistan.
So as you know, they were defective and some of us have hearing issues.
Anyways,
uh so yeah keep the mic close to you because right now i'm recording this so that when i'm done i'll be able to transcribe it and have it as a podcast so not only can the information from your veterans or service organizations go out in text format as an email once a month but also a podcast not a lot of people want to read a long email so they can listen to it in their car on the podcast um eventually i'm hoping
But that's what I've been working on and I'm open to suggestions and feedback.
That's just what I put together for the meeting.
Thank you for your time.
Good morning everyone.
Charles McCoy, Past Post Commander Legion Post 13
and I know this year that we have
Most of our military organizations represented here today and we are quite busy and now is the time to go ahead and do some promoting within.
And let's all of us get involved and make ourselves known to our fellow veterans.
This business of just sitting in a group
Thank you Charles.
Dan Hendrickson, Tallahassee Veterans Legal Collaborative.
The Veterans Court has another graduation coming up, so I can't believe the three or four months have passed again.
But on Monday week the 18th at 2, 3 o'clock,
It's on a Monday on the Leon County Courthouse.
If you haven't been to a graduation service yet, it's open to the public and I guarantee you it's an inspiring event.
Several of the participants in the vet court will be graduating that day and it's really making a difference for them.
Normally I don't and so if you also haven't yet signed up to become a mentor there are a dozen people right now that need a mentor.
So if you have some time that you want to be helping one person it would make a difference for that family.
We usually don't appeal for one thing in particular but this time I have to.
Any of y'all that have worked with the resettlement efforts from the Afghan families
We have somebody with an emergency in the next few days, so we need to plug in and find any of y'all that have done that work before.
We have someone graduating from the Veterans Court in a couple of weeks, and we're going to have to deal with a couple of things, emergencies coming up.
So please contact me afterwards if you've been at all working with the resettlement programs, because this family really needs some intervention here.
Otherwise, we're here, as Susie said, every Thursday afternoon.
We now are getting so many people coming in, we've actually had to make appointments for following up because we haven't had enough people.
This room fills up.
Oh, speaking of which, the room filled up Monday.
The host, the post here, hosted the Labor Day and almost 100 people came and they filled up a half a truckload of stuff for SSCF to take for the homeless.
Yes, Karen.
This particular Afghan soldier protected our embassy right up to the end and was able to get his family out and came here and now the time has passed and so we have to deal with INS and all the other resettlement issues and he's in the vet court, succeeded in the vet court and is getting ready to graduate.
So what does resettlement mean?
Are you trying to find a house?
Oh in his case it's to deal with the next steps.
She has limited her pro bono work to only U.S.
veterans, so we haven't talked her into helping him yet.
Morning everybody.
First of all, I just want you to know, golly this warms my heart.
Look how packed this room is.
I mean, for years I've been coming to this, and it's just grown and grown and grown.
And you two gentlemen have done a fine job pulling everybody together.
The truth is, I'd put our support organizations, at least in the other community in the United States, I've never seen this level of coordination, and each one of you should be proud of the efforts going on.
A couple of accolades, a couple of announcements.
For the first time, when a storm event came, before the storm hit, I heard from the commander.
He reached out to me and said, what can the American Legion do to help out this community during this storm event?
And I tell you what, that was absolutely amazing.
And it made me think, we got lucky, we dodged the bullet, we didn't get hit.
But there is a role for the post to play, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you reaching out and saying, hey, what can we do to help?
That was amazing.
I don't talk to you on a regular basis.
But man, the way how you represent the county, staying in touch with all the veterans and veteran organizations during a storm event, congratulations.
You do an amazing job on a day-to-day basis, but you can tell the true test of an organization or a department or whatever when the crisis comes.
You do amazing work.
Really do appreciate it.
Two announcements.
We've had a couple of great events lately.
Back in August, on Purple Heart Day, we had the Purple Heart Film Festival, the first Purple Heart Film Festival
honoring, you know, some guy over here.
We had to pull in extra police for crowd control because the women were going wild when they saw Colonel Sanchez.
Nonetheless, it was a great event.
There were three films that were shown.
The city was pleased to participate as well.
One honoring Colonel Sanchez and his story.
One honoring silent heroes, women in the military.
and then also the documentary that the City of Tallahassee did on our flight and all the way around it was just a tremendous event and I think we have started a tradition and thank you Colonel Sanchez for all your hard work.
We got, I know Bill's going to talk more about Wings and Wheels that's coming up.
It's a great event.
Looking forward to that as well.
Consider this my formal check-in as well on the Veterans Day Parade.
Just want to make sure that we're on target, on calendar and everything's going well.
Anything I can do to help
Make this event, this year, be a great event.
We will.
And in closing, on a personal note, Coach Wilson, I hate to do this to you, but tonight is my oldest son's first JV football game for the Leon Lions against the Lincoln Trojans.
Go Lions!
I hate to do that to you, sir, but I'm cheering for the family and I'm cheering for the Lions.
Go Trojans!
There we go.
Thank you.
Jeremy Murray with the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association.
Nothing to report
What's the topic with Fleet Reserve Association and Combat Vets Motorcycle Association?
Fleet Reserve Association we have our Americanism Patriotism Essay Contest.
I have the applications in the subject which is what Memorial Day means to me.
This is open to grades 6 through 12.
This past year we had one young lady from
Mya Sell will make it all the way to Nashville and came in first in her grade level.
So we're looking to have some more this year.
Thank you.
Ernie Reed, President of Fleet Reserve Association.
FRA, we represent the Sea Services, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and the Navy.
I just left the Regional Convention in Pensacola last week and just to let you know Branch 34 here in Tallahassee we got awards in American patriotism, cross-strait welfare, public relations, and youth activities.
And our shipmate, Butch Thomas, Senior Chief here, was the Regional Shipmate of the Year for Public Relationship.
And the reason he gets that is because anytime there
Tragedy around here with hurricanes.
First thing he was over in Madison with a chainsaw helping our ship makers.
And as my branch secretary, he called all the members in the area that are having trouble putting our branch there if we can help out when we can be there for them.
So give him some applause for Shipmaker of the Year.
Johnny Robbins, AMVET member.
Nothing to report.
Jackie Johnson, Tallahassee, chapter number 5 DAV, newly elected commander.
We do have something to report.
Unfortunately, I don't have the flyer, but one of my comrades' wife over there has a flyer that she's going to pass off some information.
Thank you.
Ben Bradwell, Leon County Veteran Services, just to let you know we guys are real busy.
I appreciate you sending the message to us and we are open again at 8 to 5.
Dan Patch, Regional Director for Senator Marco Rubio, nothing to report.
Aiden McMillan from 211 Big Bend, I'm a Veteran Care Coordinator, nothing to report.
I'm Keisha Washington with 201 Big Bend.
Nothing to report.
However, we have a new agency that has been added to our database.
It's Inclusion Cafe.
Sometimes we take for granted that we can get up, you know, on our own cognizance and ability to move, you know, one foot at a time in our right mind, our mental ability.
The Inclusion Cafe is dedicated to providing jobs and job training for adults with intellectual disabilities.
to enhance their quality of life and provide opportunities for persons' growth within their community.
So with them being a new agency within our database, they're doing a fundraiser.
The tickets are $50.
It's on September 29th at the Capital City Country Club.
So we're asking for you guys to come participate.
Give an adult with a disability a chance to work because we don't see that often.
They're around, but we definitely don't see it in Tallahassee.
And with this new establishment, we would like to support them the best that we can.
Thank you.
Hey, my name is Nicole Dempsey.
I'm with the Department of Veteran Affairs with the Suicide Prevention Program, and September is Suicide Prevention Month.
So I just wanted to make you all aware at the VA, we are going to be hosting an awareness walk on Tuesday, September 26.
It'll start at 9 and go to about 12.
So first we'll have the awareness walk and then we'll have some tabling to share some community resources and some VA resources as well.
And it'll be located in the parking lot.
If you've been to the VA clinic, it's got a big parking lot.
So if you enter in from the Orange Avenue entrance, it'll be to the left in the back corner.
Also, I have some information over here, some handouts with suicide prevention signs to look for and some resources on how to connect someone who is struggling.
So please feel free to come by after the meeting and I'd love to tell you more about it.
Thank you.
It will go to around 1130.
We don't have a set distance.
We just said we're going to do a walk for about 20 to 30 minutes just to give everybody.
It'll be a route that includes the walking trail and then part of the parking lot as well.
So please share that information.
I'm going to send out a flyer to the Commanders Coalition for them to share via email so that you guys can also send that out as well.
What date was that again?
Tuesday, September 26.
Good morning.
I am Sharon Wheaton with Right at Home.
I have Lori Fitzpatrick with me.
She's our Director of Quality Care.
We are a VA preferred provider for in-home care and assistance.
We're part of the Right at Home global franchise.
Our franchise supports vets across the country.
We find that veterans do not even know this benefit exists.
So when we do an intake, we always ask if you're a veteran,
They're delighted to learn that if they have a disability that was incurred in service, they're automatically approved for in-home care and assistance.
There are other ways they can easily qualify.
We have that information on our website.
We have a whole page at the Right at Home website dedicated to veterans.
Lori has passed out some flyers that provide more detail, but we'd be happy
Laurie Fitzpatrick Right at Home
An honor to be here surrounded by such heroes and I mean that.
So on the flyer though where the orange link is at the bottom if you put that in your computer it gives you it leads you right to some great information and we have more flyers here and would love to talk to you to get you some more information on how we can help our veterans in our community.
Good afternoon, everyone, and good morning.
My name is Valencia Scott.
I represent Dr. Akene Akeneye, your Leon County Property Advisor.
We do try to come every month to be of support to you all.
Thank you all for your service and thank you all for what you're doing, coming together monthly to make sure that you all can continue to serve one another and your units and your posts.
We depend on you greatly to disseminate information.
A lot of our vets don't know that there are money-saving property tax exemptions that they can get.
So if we can be of any service to you all, we will continue to come to the monthly meetings as you all have your individual events.
If you'd like us there as a resource to help disseminate information, please feel free to contact us.
I'll be here for a little while after the meeting if you all want to get more contact information.
Thank you for coming.
We appreciate your keen support for the American Legion as well.
How are you guys doing?
My name is Mike Simmons.
I'm with the American Legion Post 114 out of Crawfordville.
Basically, I have nothing to report other than I just came off the American Legion Legacy Ride, okay, and what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to start my own group of Post 114 down in Crawfordville.
So if you know anybody that's rides, I'm looking for veterans, auxiliary members, sons or daughters of veterans, you know, come on down.
We'll welcome you.
And just to let you know, with the legacy ride that just came off, it was for scholarships of any post-911 veterans that were 50% or greater or deceased, their children, giving them full scholarships.
So like I said, we had picked up like 1.5 million plus, so there's a lot of children that's going to be benefiting from what we just did.
Other than that, thank you for having me.
Good to see you guys and I'll pass it on.
Good morning everyone.
I'm Roxanne Dressel.
I'm the commander of American Legion Post 114 in Crawfordville.
I have nothing to report today.
Good morning.
I am the commander for the 2nd District American Legion and I am very thankful I finally got around to all 14 posts and got them installed.
Now we also had some notes that came down from the Department of Florida
cautioning us not to just pick up and go to the disaster area but to coordinate that with the officials in the area so we don't become more of a problem than a help.
Thank you guys.
Good morning I'm Jim Messer I'm JAG for Post 13 and for District 2 and I have nothing to report.
Good morning
I'm not good at this.
I'm Karen Bauer.
I'm from Women Veterans Unite and I do have something to report.
Tomorrow night we're having a fundraiser at BJ's.
I put some flyers on the table but I have more if some of you didn't get one and you think you would want to participate.
What it entails is anywhere between 5 o'clock and 11 o'clock for you to go to BJ's on the corner of
Apalachee Parkway and Blairstone.
It's in the Dick's Shopping Center.
And have dinner.
And 20% of the proceeds will be donated to the Women Veterans Unite.
So we really appreciate it.
I did send an email out to some of you, but if you didn't get the flyer, please let me know.
If you know people that might want to go, pick up some extra ones.
I have a bunch.
So thank you for your help.
And that's it.
Yeah, the barcode is what they are going to be looking for.
Good morning, Lorraine Kitzmiller with the barracks at Quincy.
We did dodge the storm, so I'm very thankful for that, but know that the house was ready, even had extra cots, plenty of food, and we did lose electricity for about 15 minutes, but in the case that there is a storm in different counties or anywhere, the barracks is available for free for veterans.
Hi, Patti Fabian with At Ease Campground and Operation At Ease up on Lake Seminole, the old Jack Wingate's fish camp.
We have a few things to report.
One is we are now approved by 90 Works, which is a veteran rehoming and homeless rested care from mostly Cato County and that surrounding area, but southwest Georgia.
If anyone knows any homeless vets, I have a contact information that they can get into this program.
They can stay in multiple places, not just ours, but it's a very good resource and they'll pay the rent and help them get long-term housing.
The other thing we have... Is that in Georgia only?
I think it is.
I think it's southwest Georgia, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.
I think it is.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
The other thing...
We have going on is
Nicole Dempsey's baby was the Veterans Alliance of Tequila County that we've been formed about five months now we've met and we're trying to create and understand the needs that the Southwest Georgia veterans are not getting supported with.
It has a suicide prevention arm but we're also trying to get resources and other events and activities so that we can get the veterans in that area better served
One thing that came out of that coalition is now called the Southwest Georgia Veterans and Family Alliance.
We created a veterans group, it's called the Meet and Greet.
It's the first Thursday of the month, which is tomorrow.
But you have to go eat first.
Heather with the VA, she's going to be doing the SAVE program, which is a training to help people act and react compassionately to veterans in crisis, but it's also good to help anyone.
Our first responders locally are all attending because it's a small volunteer fire department, so it's a resource that anyone can use to help veterans and anyone they know that might be struggling.
It all works the same.
We are also creating a Facebook page.
It's going to be the same as Veterans.
I think it's going to be Northern Florida, Southwest Georgia Veterans Facebook page.
There's many around the area.
There's one in South Florida, there's one in Central Florida, and there's a Georgia, which is mostly mid to northern.
We're going to create that.
It's a resource that anyone can use to help veterans to connect, to use it as a platform to promote your programs, but it's going to be open to all veterans to join and then gather information and share information.
We're doing another MacGyver program.
The one we did in the spring was a great success, so we're going to be doing one.
It's going to be the early November.
The dates will be announced soon.
And one last thing, Veterans Day.
We did our first annual fishing tournament last year.
We're going to do it again this year.
It's going to be on the 12th of November to not conflict with the parades and everything else.
It was a lot of fun last year.
We are actually co-hosting it with the 40 and 8.
We're going to have a lot of different organizations there.
If you don't want to do the fish tournament, it's a Grand Slam, so it's all kinds of fish.
You don't have to just be a fast fisherman.
And afterwards, we have a huge fish fry, we'll have live music, and we'd like to do a car show, but we can't find any contacts.
So if anyone has a contact for an organization that puts on the car shows, we'd be happy to get it from you.
And the last thing is our non-profit thing, we should be approved in the next six to eight weeks.
And that's it.
Sorry, it's so long.
So my question is, are you currently helping Dublin, Georgia, as far as housing, because most of our
Veterans who transition to Tallahassee for transitional housing are from Dublin, Georgia because there aren't any supports up there which limits our, I just met a female veteran yesterday that is experiencing homelessness so I offered my home to her for as long as I can.
So because we only have one transitional housing in Tallahassee
That really equates to four bedrooms for women veterans.
That's all we have in Tallahassee.
So it's not our program.
Like I said, it's through 90 works.
I have their contact information and you can find out all the details.
We're just an approved location.
Okay.
I have two car show information and I can give you.
Thank you.
It's at ease campground and Marina.
That's the Facebook page and we have a website.
It's very active.
We get lots of information out and shared on there also.
That's, oh, I'm sorry.
You mean the other one.
We haven't posted it yet.
It's getting ready to go live in the next couple of weeks.
So we're just tossing around whether we're going to do, I think we're going to keep it like the VA hospital.
I just don't remember what order.
I think it's North Florida slash South Georgia veterans group.
But if you could send me an email, I'll share it with you when we actually make it live.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Nell Hewitt.
I'm with the American Legion Auxiliary Unit 13 here in Tallahassee.
I was out of town at the national conference when y'all were having the storm, but we were looking and praying everybody was going to be nice and safe.
I have three hats to wear this morning.
Number one, the first hat is going to be the Honor Guard could not be here today.
They're out at the cemetery as we speak having an internment.
Their reports are as of September 6, 2023, they have performed 1,064 internments and 13 in the month of August.
So they stay busy.
And if anyone would like to volunteer, they would be acceptable.
You need a white shirt and dark pants.
And I'm famous on ironing a white shirt, okay?
You're dressed.
Are you offering?
Okay, now the next one is the DAV.
We had someone remark about the DAV.
Is this what I'm supposed to read?
These were all sent to me last night.
The DAV is a non-profit charity that provides a lifetime of support for veterans and all generations and their families.
Hoping more than 1 million veterans in positive life-changing ways each year.
One of the various services for the DAV provides are no calls to veterans
is our information seminar program.
These seminars are available across the country to help veterans and their families obtain the services and benefits they have earned.
Staffed by the DAV, Tallahassee Service Office, our information seminars provide professional support throughout the claims and appeal process.
DAV membership is not required to utilize these free services.
And I hope I'm not going to speak out of turn, but next Tuesday at the National Guard Armory, when they have their luncheon for the veterans, I believe the DAV is going to be there with a table, membership table, and they can answer any questions that you may have about the DAV.
My third one, I'm not going to do this right.
Mary Ann Trussell is out of the country and I have been given the task of reading her notes.
The POWMIA candlelight vigil will be held at the Tallahassee National Cemetery on Friday, September the 15th at 8 p.m.
We're having several POWMIA services on that Friday.
We have one in
at noon here right and then we have what time is that one at 49?
1730.
530.
530 thank you very much.
P.U.
17 wasn't what I was looking for.
The 9-11 Memorial will be dedicated on September the 11th 9-11 at 8 30 a.m.
at the beautiful location at the Red Cross building at 1115 Easterwood Drive.
The developer who developed the memorial is arranging for parking at Tom Brown Park with shuttle buses taking attendees to the memorial dedication.
The final salute it was previously known as the end of the month service will be held on
I'm going to think September the 27th.
Yeah, September the 27th at 3 p.m.
at the National Cemetery.
The next support committee meeting will be held at the Talahassee National Cemetery Administration Building Conference Room at 5 o'clock on Tuesday, October the 17th.
Elections will be held for the position of Secretary and Chair.
Only eligible members will be able to vote.
Please join us for all these events.
Thank you.
Can I have your notes online afterwards?
Let me emphasize that this seminar that we're going to have, she mentioned about September 12th at the National Guard Honorary, that's going to be a seminar for veterans to try to get all veterans out there who you might know of
who has some type of disability and want to know about how to file for a claim.
And that's what it's for.
It's gonna be from one o'clock to three o'clock.
We're gonna have dinner out there like they normally have, starting at 11.30, I believe it is, 12 o'clock.
The dinner's not for the people that's gonna come out.
If they come out ahead of time, they can join in and eat.
But it's gonna be a seminar to help veterans
Find out what it takes to get qualified for disability.
From 1 to 3 o'clock, yes.
Hi, Mary LaBad from DAR.
I'm just here trying to keep informed of all your invites.
Thank you.
Hi, Craig Benner from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
If you didn't see, the POWMIA event is at our building, the Kirkman Building, over at the corner of Appalachian Parkway and Capitol Circle.
It'll be at noon at our building at the front flagpole.
It takes about 15 minutes.
We'll do a ceremony there at the flagpole.
If the weather is bad, we also have a conference room.
Feel free to come out there and participate in our ceremony.
A lot of our members will be there.
And then Patty didn't mention how good the restaurant is.
That's probably one of the things she didn't mention out of her whole thing.
So if you haven't been there, please head up there.
So that's all I have.
Hello.
I'm Bill Eickhofer I'm with the Greg Kish Show, Monday Veterans Program.
Thank you everybody in the room for making the program a success.
This coming Monday, if you know a veteran or anybody who is looking to start their own business, we have Todd Sperry coming on the show to give you tips on how to create a thriving business.
You may see the sign Sperry all over the place and all over Sperry.
He's the past president of the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce.
He's going to give you his insights the next week.
We have Sean Knowles coming from Veterans Village.
We have Habitat for Humanity coming up soon.
We have somebody to talk about suicide prevention coming up soon.
We have Judge Asenafi Richardson coming on soon.
And thank you for your support in making this show a success.
Now, Wings and Wheels, we have not been talking much about it because we are changing it.
It is being expanded to three to five days.
Most air shows to get people to fly in from around the region and the country, they don't want to fly in for an afternoon, fly in the morning, and fly out.
They want to spend a week or several days in the city to visit.
And that is what we are working on creating.
But with that, and I don't want to tell you too much right now, there are a lot of fixed costs with a week-long event versus a fly-in one day, fly-in and out the same day.
And we have a possible grant donor that we are talking to to cover those fixed costs.
So until we have more details
Doug Ingram will come and tell you about them.
But the event will not be, in any case, before September of next year.
Because to put together a major event like this, you can't do it overnight or in a couple months.
Most of these events are major economic drivers for the community.
In Lakeland, who are patterning the show after the changes, they create 2,000 jobs in the
For Corridor, it's amazing that I do a radio show, right?
I can't talk.
But 2,000 jobs for the community and all kinds of money coming in to support our local businesses and the nonprofits.
So as things develop, we'll let you know, but it is going to be
We have a potential person to help fund that, but I don't want to tell you what we're going to say before we actually meet with them, which is coming up very soon.
Thank you.
I have a question.
This is going to be like a fundraising opportunity.
When we first started the Florida Veterans Foundation, part of that reason was to address
Well, this is a 6th Masonic District project
Washington, thank you.
I have a couple of things that I have to say.
Thank you to Charles for the cross over, woke me up with the fact that we really, we come here and a lot of you have nothing to say.
That's fine, but you can volunteer with the organizations that are participating in an event.
That's what I encourage you to do because we do the stand down and we generally have need about 200 volunteers to help us, but we don't get that out of this group.
We get it out of the city and maybe the churches and places like that, but I would encourage you to participate in each other's activity.
That's one thing.
The second one is what the mayor has
I have to give him credit, he's a man of his word, but four years ago he said if you have a film made of your story, I will find a place to have it presented.
Four years ago.
And so the mayor is the one that got the IMAX theater for us to have the film.
Film Festival and next year we will have a similar film festival and we hope for we'll have someone from here a veteran that will be featured as well as maybe on the flight something else because it did go very very well.
We had Mission Barbecue there giving away free food
that was provided by a sponsor, the same sponsor that said I will also sponsor next year.
So we already got the food taken care of, we got the place taken care of because the mayor is going to make sure that we can use the same place for the most part.
And I think it's an honor to be featured on a film that talks about your life so your family knows what you
What you did in the military and since the military.
I served 27 years, 27 and a half years, but I've been out 30.
And in those 30 years, I've done mostly veteran stuff.
And if you check me out, you'll find that that is true.
Okay.
This morning at 7 o'clock, I was at a
The faith, Presbyterian Church, they invited me to come speak to their Kiwanis group.
I left there with $800.
Okay?
I didn't go there for the funds, but that's what they did.
I didn't expect the funds, but that's what they did.
So, when we do things, we do get some results from it.
I'm not preaching to you, but I'm just telling you
What happens for the most part?
I do have one event that we're having because that's all we do is give back.
We don't charge anybody anything.
We are having on the 22nd of September, we have what we call a micro stand down.
It's the purpose for providing primarily to provide
Dental care for veterans who cannot get it through VA.
VA, unless you have 100%, you don't get dental care.
And you're going to pay for it, like I do, with some insurance policy, what have you.
So I'm saying to you that on the 22nd, I put cards out on the table.
If you don't need them, pass them to somebody that does.
We talk about people needing help.
We need to help them.
Thank you.
We need some more information on that micro stand down.
It's on your table.
There's a card on your table.
Oh, I didn't have one.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Calvin Carter from the VA clinic
So it's the last Wednesday of course hurricane came through but for our clinics in Marianna, Tallahassee
We continued to deliver care through telehealth.
There were some hiccups of course, some clinicians with their electrical power and home internet services, intermittent here and there, but it was something, amidst the hiccups, it was something that we were trying to achieve, trying to minimize canceling appointments and whatnot.
The Perry Clinic, the Perry Clinic, itty bitty Perry Clinic, sustained roof damage, of course electrical power has been out since
We have deployed a mobile medical unit from Tampa, it's a big RV trailer, rendering first aid and mental health screens for anybody, not just veterans, but those are VA resources being provided in the community.
So they did that last week and they continued that this week.
Clinic-wise, the Perry Clinic is business as usual.
Regular appointments with providers, social workers, getting blood draws, all that.
And then while at the same time we're continuing the mobile unit, still rendering first aid, giving out food relief supplies out there, working with Taylor County to get that to happen.
So, thank you.
Is the power still out at Perry?
Yes, but we have a generator power.
Anybody else that did not speak that needs to speak?
I saw one or two people pass the mic without ever talking but
Don't want to pass up anybody that has anything to say.
Representative Allison Tant sent her regrets.
She's feeding people today.
Okay.
Just a quick note.
David got in here a little bit late.
I'm sorry, David got in a little bit late but the Air Force Association, I'll let him speak to it, they got approved for their monument out of the National Cemetery and actually the VFW monument for the National Cemetery has left the district and gone to Washington for its approval.
I just want everybody here to know that I am officially old because I had my first great grandchild last weekend.
Yeah, the Air Force Monument, we're working through the process, met with Jason yesterday and so we'll let you know more details come 1st of October.
It's not that I'm
You know, good friends with David Wilson, but like the mayor, I was the class of 65 over at Leon.
Girl, Leon!
Alright.
The mayor talked a little bit about the growth of this meeting in here, and he pointed to the front table up here, but it's not all us.
It's you when you invite somebody else to show up, Fred invites David, right?
When Fred invites David from the Patriot Guard, I am pleased to have the Patriot Guard here.
Thank you.
You know, you're welcome each and every meeting.
And if people like that, the different ones that got invited over the past years,
And you keep on coming back and sharing what you have.
That's what made this meeting grow.
Now, of course, everybody doesn't have something to say all the time.
And then you got people like me, Washington, that's gonna get up and, you know, unfortunately, you can't look down at the ground and just walk away.
You're kind of a captive audience for the moment.
But I want to thank each of you for what you're doing.
to make this show because this is our meeting.
This isn't my meeting, it's not Barry's meeting, it's not the Legion meeting, it is our meeting.
It belongs to all of us and it was invented that way.
Let's see.
Once in a while, and I'm not going to point to this section over here to point them out, but every now and then a question is asked
and the person is answering the question and you've got to listen to the answer real good to figure out sometimes what the question was.
So if you're speaking and somebody over here asks you a question, repeat that question so the people over here know what you're fixing to talk about and why.
Let's see, we do have a
Group in the Legion here.
Not everybody has that.
We have, what is it, all 14 posts and only three of them have some groups.
Chattahoochee, Lanark Village, and us.
Well, we're here, okay?
So if you have somebody that would like to become a member, they haven't been doing an awful lot.
We're trying to work on that situation, trying to get them involved in a couple things around the post here, but they can at least go ahead and join.
And we can make the members here.
There are some small requirements.
They just have to fall into that.
The parents have to be qualified to join the legion, whichever one was in the service.
And if they're still living, then they have to be a member of the legion.
Doesn't have to be here.
They could be a member up in New York and the child be here and they can still join here.
But we do have a son's group here that
And they, we do allow them at the current time to participate on the Honor Guard.
Now thank you for reporting on that Honor Guard.
I had some notes here too in case, knowing that they were doing their 1067th service today according to what I saw on the email I got.
But, so that's the reason why they're not represented today.
That's pretty much it, Barry.
I'm going to turn it over to you and let Mary Ann, who's not here, so you get to speak and close it out.
All right, thank you.
Maybe.
Good morning.
I'll hold it up to my mouth so y'all can hear it.
We've got the cardboard boat race coming up September 30th.
That is the fundraiser for the American Legion and we're raising money for our group.
We've got
We've also got Nicole after this, Nicole's got a meeting at 12.
Do you want to say something about that real quick to invite them about it?
They may be combining with us in the future but
So my role is to help bridge the gap between what the VA is doing and what the community is doing to help provide support to veterans.
We know that the majority of the veterans that died by suicide were actually not accessing care through the VA health care system at least two years prior to their death by suicide.
Now being said, the VA has now expanded their suicide prevention program including me so that my role is to work in the community to be able to offer the resources that the VA has and to help as a technical support.
So I'm starting a coalition here in Leon County and then I've partnered with NAMI
And Barry and I were talking because a lot of the goals that we have with the coalition overlap with what you guys are also doing.
So we're having Barry coming to our coalition meeting today, and he's invited us to have it here.
And he's going to share some information on the Be The One program, which is a suicide prevention program that's being rolled out by the American Legion nationally.
and he's going to be sharing information about that and we're going to see how maybe potentially we could all collaborate together.
We don't want to reinvent the wheel if there's something already going on and duplicate services.
So I'd like if anybody in this room is interested in coming to that coalition meeting to learn more about American
Legion's Be The One program and what our coalition is focused on doing.
You're welcome to come.
It'll be at noon so we invite people to bring their lunch with them.
Lunch and learn type of setting and again it will be in this room so in about an hour so you have an hour to go get lunch come back and we'd love to have you.
Thank you.
I'm also a part of TAPS which is Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors that offers supports for those that are struggling but then also for the families of survivors and there is a wealth of
Scholarships and meetings that TAPS puts on at no cost.
It's a wonderful nationwide group that the woman who started it was active duty as well as her husband that she lost.
Thank you, both of you.
So, like Nicole said, we're starting the Be The One campaign here in Tallahassee as well.
And it's like she said, the suicide prevention aspect of it.
But it's also checking in on our fellow veterans.
If any of your organizations want to participate with us, feel free to join in.
Also, Monday mornings, coffee and donuts here, or coffee and pastries, or muffins, or whatever we decide to bring that morning.
But it's open to all veterans, not just American Legion.
So if you want to come, meet with other veterans, just hang out, that's cool.
Please come.
Eight in the morning.
Eight to ten.
So you can show up at nine.
I think we've got a couple people that show up at nine.
Also, I'm looking at it.
I think that's it.
Stuart Scott.
Stuart Scott sent me a text saying session starting soon.
I think it starts at the end of September, is that correct?
Also, we are having the District 2 picnic here this Saturday from 11 until.
We're going to roast a pig, come out, eat some pork.
Thank y'all.