News

 

During the August business meeting, the post charter will be draped with a black cloth for the following comrade who recently passed away. The charter will stay draped for 30 days in his honor.

 

Robert White, U.S. Army, Vietnam War

 

It was recently brought to Quartermaster Harold Rodenberger’s attention that Comrade Evan Turner’s seven-month-old baby daughter, Lillian, was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, Stage 4S in April.

 

Comrade Turner and his wife have started a GoFundMe page, and it says, “Although unexpected and heartbreaking, the cancer was found early. The Doctors are optimistic that Lillian will respond well to treatment and live a long life. Evan and Rachel are prepared to do whatever they have to do for their little girl. Their future consists of surgeries, additional cancer treatment, constant observation by the Pediatric Oncology team at Seattle Children’s, a lot of traveling, various therapies, not to mention the vast amount of unseen costs for potential therapy associated with aggressive cancer treatment in the years to come.”

 

If you would like to donate to Lillian’s cause, please visit her GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/lillians-battle-with-neuroblastoma.

 

Enjoy trekking? Post member Russ Seelig is planning a trek in Nepal next spring and invites other interested members (and family members) to join in the fun. The actual trekking starts from Jiri, near Kathmandu, and winds up to Everett Base Camp and back to Lukla. So far, Harold and his son have signed on for the approximately four-week hike. It promises to be an interesting, and challenging, trek so if you are interested, give Russ or Harold a call to get more details.

 

By Pete Krawitz

Comrades, as I take the helm for the next 12 months, I want to thank you once again for entrusting me with this tremendous responsibility. I also want to especially thank Nestor, Aaron, and Harold for their leadership and guidance over the last few years as I moved up the seats. As you probably saw in the last newsletter, Nestor and Harold, like Aaron, led the post in earning a white cap at the department convention. This enormous achievement now marks two years in a row that our post has earned this honor. I have some big shoes to fill!
With that, I’m very excited to work with you and the post leadership team to continue to build upon some of the great successes that we’ve had over the last few years. The leadership team has already been discussing many great ideas, but we do realize that we only have a short amount of time to analyze, discuss, plan and implement some of them. I will be relying heavily on your feedback and the guidance of the current and past leadership team members as we move forward. I have four main areas that I'd like for us to focus on during this 2017/2018 term. These priorities are membership, community, accessibility/continuity, and the auxiliary.

What does all of this mean? Come to the post business meeting next week (July 6) to find out! We will be kicking this first meeting off with a joint session with the auxiliary to discuss all of these priorities and some specific goals before we break into our normal business meetings.
The one priority I'd like to briefly discuss is the topic of membership. Getting younger veterans signed up and involved in the VFW is a priority that we hear echoed at the district, state and national level time and time again. A few of us recently attended the department convention in Olympia this weekend, and this message was no different.
While I do agree that we need to attract younger veterans, I also believe we need to try and achieve this without alienating our older members in the process. One of the main reasons I joined this organization was to learn from the post-military experiences of our older service members. For some, reintegration back into civilian society (specifically in Seattle) can be challenging. However, it can be a heck of a lot easier when you surround yourself with sisters and brothers who speak your language and have been living in this community for many years.
It’s incredible to think that the VFW has been in Ballard for nearly 100 years. Let's work together to ensure we are here in the community for another 100+ years.