Albany County is announcing awards to veterans service organizations.
The $150,000 in community grants to 10 American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts throughout the county is intended to support programming at the organizations. Speaking at American Legion Post 1610 in North Albany Friday, County Executive Dan McCoy says, as an Army veteran and current Army National Guardsman, he knows the organizations are key to serving those who served.
“This is a sanctuary for these veterans, whether it be the American Legion, or the VFW, you know, it's a place where we come and we have people that understand our, our body language, understand the way we speak and understand our stories,” McCoy said.
Jacqueline Jones, a Navy veteran, is Commander of Post 1610 and the daughter of Deputy County Legislature Chair Wanda Willingham. She says the $15,000 her post is receiving will help the post better serve its servicemembers by updating its restrooms, but more still needs to be done.
“Right now I'm just looking to try to obtain funding, as I said, to continue to keep the structure of the facility in operation, and also to be a catalyst in a geographical area here,” Jones said.
Specifically, Jones says the post building, which dates to 1946, needs significant repairs.
“We need a new roof. So we'll be tapping into those funding opportunities that come available. We are also doing some capital planning ourself here, doing fundraisers. So that information will be posted on our website, and in our newsletters,” Jones said.
McCoy also announced a new pilot program, Heroes Homecoming, aimed at helping active duty servicemembers make the move back to civilian life.
“A lot of times, I would say probably 90 percent, and I think the vets in this room [would agree]- they don't sit there and tell you, ‘hey, you're entitled to this, you should connect with this, when you get back into your community, that there's a breakdown. And these veterans get out, and sometimes they go back where they came from, and sometimes they go to a new state or new city, and they don't know who to contact,” McCoy said.
McCoy says the county owes it to veterans to help them.
“Sometimes it takes us a while to catch up to that veteran. And they even if they own a home, sometimes they don't know they can get a school tax exemption, they can get a county exemption, they can get a state, and they just got to file their [form DD-214],” McCoy said.
Willingham says veterans in the county legislature, also including Andrew Joyce, the former Chair of the body, strongly supported the measure.
“To have men who are serving- to have men and women who are veterans, we realized that, you know, we had to do something, and we got tired of hearing people say no, from other sources, you know, so we decided to step up to the plate and do what we should do,” Willingham said.
The Democrat adds, having grown up during the Vietnam War era, the challenges facing today’s veterans are no different.
“The same problem with drugs, but also the alcoholism is there, and a lot of mental health problems,” Willingham said.
She says the American Legion, VFW, and other veterans service organizations are still recovering from the COVID pandemic.
“A lot of it's been to do to vast discrepancies in income and poverty, workforce demographics and unemployment, labor participation and crime rates. And we took a huge hit; the VFWs did during the pandemic,” Willingham said.
She recalled the concern she felt when her daughter was sent overseas.
“She said, ‘I got called up,’ and I'm like, ‘called up, where are you going? You're already in?’ She says, ‘No, I gotta go overseas.’ And then watching what was going on in the news and realize that, you know, it wasn't just her, and sitting in church and realizing it was a whole lot of people across the nation that were being affected, it was scary,” Willingham said.
Jones says she’s supporting her community to the best of her ability.
“I’ve come to learn that it I s a food desert down here. And over the last three years we have been doing initiatives in for youth programs, also back to school events, also during the holidays, making food baskets and distributing them and also being a distributor-collector for Toys for Tots,” Jones said.
The nine other posts receiving $15,000 each are American Legion Helderberg Post 977 in Altamont, Blanchard Curry Post 1040 in Delmar, Boyd Hilton VFW Post 7062 in Altamont, Lawrence J. Pittman VFW Post 3185 in Delmar, Green Island’s American Legion Legnard-Curtain Post 927, the Robert L. Weininger VFW Post 8692 in Colonie, the Unitas Memorial Veterans Association in Ravena, American Legion Post 1493 in Voorheesville, and Wigand VFW Post 8444 in Albany.
