Auxiliary Corner - June 2025
Happy June!
Hopefully the nicer weather is on its way! We have a lot to get ready for July’s big event! May brought elections for most entities. Congratulations to all the incoming officers.
With the Auxiliary’s elections complete, your auxiliary officers for the year are:
- President: Julie Montello
- First-Vice: Pat Tebordo
- Second-Vice: June Gaulin
- Secretary: Colleen Rich
- Treasurer: Cynthia Nevins
- Chaplin: Dawn Palmer
- Executive Committee: Michele Nevins, Kate Francis, and Danielle Haxstun
Congratulations to all of these ladies, I look forward to working with you all. We have great things coming our way!
We still need volunteers for bingo and for the bingo kitchen. If anyone would like to be added to the kitchen calendar, please reach out to us and we will add your name. If you can only volunteer for a couple hours, that is ok also. Just let us know what times you can cover.
As we all know by now, the Vietnam Traveling Wall will be here July 24-28. Dan Nolin has reached out to the Wall Manager to plan an escort. As of right now, the Wall will be arriving at our Post at 10am Thursday, July 24th. If you are interested in being part of that escort, reach out to Dan Nolin. When the Wall arrives, we will need at least 20 volunteers to help assemble it. Please reach out to one of us if you would like to be part of that group. We are trying to keep records and schedules so we can hopefully keep things flowing smoothly throughout this event.
Volunteers are also needed to work in the kitchen for the duration of the event. Dan Nolin and his crew are handling the breakfast sandwiches. We plan to have the kitchen open from 11am to 7pm during the event. Volunteers are needed for the four days. (Thurs – Sunday). Again, reach out to me or any officers from the auxiliary and they can let us know what times to schedule you for. You can also email me at ala574hf@yahoo.com
We also still need volunteers to read names. It takes a total of 65 hours, reading 24 hours a day to read the over 58,000 names on the wall. We only have 23 of those hours filled. PLEASE follow the QR code at the end of the newsletter and sign up to volunteer for 30 minutes to read names. We have approximately 45 hours to fill. That is 90 half hour slots. So please pass the word so we will not forget one single name on that wall.
The good news is, Hudson Falls school has agreed to partner with us for transportation during the event. They are going to provide us with two busses and two drivers and have agreed to parking at the intermediate school on Maple St and they will bus people back and forth. A HUGE shout out to Hudson Falls School for handling that.
We will have a meeting on June 8th at 10am in the hall, and then two more in July before the wall. If you want to volunteer, please be at that meeting if you can.
We have reached the deadline for the program ad book. Hopefully we will have it ready for print within the next couple weeks. It is quite a large publication, the response to the ad campaign was overwhelming and I thank everyone who submitted an ad.
The amount of donations of all forms for this event has been something we can all be proud of. We are sure to have a remarkable event.
On to the next project. Operation Full Plate – A Veteran Food Program, is a program that is being launched in September. The auxiliary voted on this unit program with an overwhelming response. As auxiliary members, it is our duty to take care of our Veterans in need. We have received word that there are an unknown number of Veterans that are food deficient. Even one Veteran is too many. As members of this post, we ALL should be watching out for and taking care of our veterans in crisis. With this start up program, it is our plan to provide these veterans with six supplemental meals a month (3 meals every two weeks). It is directed to those veterans who live alone and do not have the ability to make healthy meals on their own or have the means of transportation to shop. We will also be collecting non-perishable groceries. We hope to be able to deliver the veterans a bag of groceries along with their meals. This will also give us the opportunity to check on them and see if there is anything else we can help with.
The disturbing fact is, “up to 24% of veterans in the United States experience food insecurity, or inconsistent access to nutritionally adequate and safe foods. The veteran population is at a much higher risk for food insecurity than the civilian population, with an overall prevalence rate of food insecurity twice that of the whole US population. Food insecurity rates vary among sub-populations of veterans, but impact all ages of veterans, including post-9/11 veterans, working age veterans, and veterans who are older adults.” If we as members can help with even a handful of these Veterans, then we have done our job.
The planned schedule for this program is the Second (following breakfast) and fourth Sunday of each month. We will need volunteers to cook and deliver meals/groceries on either Sunday or Monday.
If you know of any veteran that could benefit from this program, please email ofpunit574@yahoo.com
It is important that the Legion Family does not lose sight of why we are here. While it is enjoyable to get together to have comradery, take note of those who are not joining you at the lounge or other events. Reach out to those veterans and check on them. Ask if there is anything they need, or anything we can do. After all, the reason we all joined our entities is to help those veterans in need. I urge ALL entities to make that our priority. Do what we are here to do, take care of our Veterans!
On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to our auxiliary members for everything you do. This election marks my 5th year as your president. Being a leader in this organization is like watching a baby grow. We have increased the auxiliary by 58 new members since 2020. There was a time that we only had a handful of members attend the meetings. Now, we have upwards of 20 at our meetings. More members are volunteering; new people are stepping up to be officers and just about everyone is coming up with new ideas! I am proud to be part of growing this organization along side of all of you. We have work to do Ladies, and we are getting it done! Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough. Please know, I appreciate each and everyone of you for what you do. Don’t forget to keep track of those volunteer hours. You should all have a lot to submit after July.
This will be our last meeting until September. Don’t forget, please come to the wall meeting if you want to volunteer, or even if you are just thinking about it.
With all Respect,
Julie Montello, President