Diane Small
2017-2018 National Youth Activities Ambassador
Four Ways For Youth to Show Love For Our Veterans
We’re heading in to February, the month of LOVE! It’s a perfect time to include youth in a campaign to show our veterans and their families how much love and support is there for them! Four ways to accomplish this are listed below.
- Does your Auxiliary and/or Post host a sweetheart dinner or dance for Valentine’s Day? Why not contact a scout group or a church youth group and invite them to come and help decorate and/or serve the dinner?
- Do you have members that are as technologically challenged as me? I’m sure you do! There is so much to learn and smart phones and tablets can be intimidating! Contact your local middle or high school and see if they have a computer club or a group of students who would volunteer to work one on one with a veteran to show them how to use this technology. Think about how much can be shared if a veteran knows how to Facetime/Skype with their children and grandchildren?
- Wouldn’t it be nice if your local nursing home or care facility had some nice Valentine’s Day tray favors for their veterans? Work with your Hospital Chairman and enlist the help of youth groups and/or individual youth in your community by hosting a “Love Our Veterans” day of service and make Valentine’s Day cards and tray favors to take to your local facilities. Take youth with you to deliver all the things they made to show their love for our veterans and let them experience the gratefulness shown by veterans at the facility for the loving gift. Trust me – these youths will want to come back and do more in March for St. Patrick’s Day!
- Does your Post and/or Auxiliary send boxes of goodies to deployed military units through the VFW Adopt-a-Unit program? Work with your Veterans & Family Support Chairman and enlist the help of youth to gather items needed for the boxes and let them help to package and mail them.
There are so many ways to include youth in all our amazing programs! Many of the things I mentioned you are already doing, so be sure to take the time to include your community youth to help and they learn more about veterans and their families at the same time!
