Mary Steinbach- AMVETS Ladies Auxiliary President 2015-2016
Auxiliary News – October 2015
October is our membership dinner which will be held in the former American Legion building. Social hour starts at 5:30 and the dinner will be served at 6:30. You may renew your membership that night or dues may be sent to Jean Lanske at 416 4th St. SW, Waverly. Dues are just $20.00 per year. This year’s entertainment will be Katie LaHue, a music therapist, who will perform and explain how music is used as therapy. At the dinner we will also collect any information from our members for our service reports. Every 6 months we send in reports with information from our members with various donations, hours of volunteering, monetary donations, and mileage. Examples include: donations to Trinkets and Togs or Goodwill, hospital or Bartels volunteer hours, Hospice volunteering, Blood donations or volunteering, monetary donations to MDA, cancer research, Wounded Warriors, (just to name a few), donations to women’s shelters or food banks, Box tops for education, collecting Hy-Vee receipts for education, Disables Vets, attending Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day programs, visiting Shut-ins, driving those in need to various appointment, Meals on Wheels. This is only the tip of the iceberg of programs and projects that can be reported. Our goal this year is to collect something from each member to show what our auxiliary does to benefit our community, our hospitals and retirement communities, and to support or veterans and their families. Please bring a list of your activities to the membership dinner so we can include it in our reports.
This year, we are also collecting items to be donated to the Marshalltown VA home. We are asking for full size only items of personal hygiene products, new puzzle books, and new larger size sweatshirts or pants. There is a collection box at the WAVP building and when the ladies travel to Marshalltown in January we will take all items collected. Last year we collected a large trunk full of items. Let’s set the goal to exceed that amount!
Food nights hosted by our auxiliary continue to be a great fundraiser for the auxiliary. Money raised from the dinners have supported our scholarship program, donations to the Bremer Co. VA, WAVP, and to our various State Auxiliary Projects. Some of the State Projects include: John Tracy clinics for the hearing impaired, PAWS with a Cause, Retrieving Freedom, St. Jude’s Hospitals for Children, local VA hospitals and clinics, Honor Flight, and more.
If you would like to help out more, please contact me or better yet, attend our monthly meetings. Space does not allow for me to tell you all that we do and can be done throughout our community. Many hands make light work!
The following is the AMVETS Ladies Auxiliary Motto. Those words had great meaning when the Auxiliary first formed and holds true for the work we do today.
“We Waited Together – Now Let’s Work Together”