Andover American Legion assists veterans

ANDOVER – The members of Percy D. Hyatt American Legion Post 226 wanted to do something for the people in the Andover community.
Those intentions led the members of Post 226 to the doors at Andover Village Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation ready to distribute a handful of checks.
Post 226 Commander Joe Paul and a small contingent from the post delivered $25 to each of the five Army veterans living at the nursing home.
“We’ve been doing this for a couple years and we were looking for a way to sort of do outreach to veterans in the area and looking for who’s hurting the most,” Paul said. “We thought of these folks who probably don’t get a lot of visitors.”
Army veterans Earl Gross, Anthony Zevola, Edgar Timothy, Dora Higgins and Jane Ericson received the gifts.
“These are all the veterans who are here at the nursing home, so we were looking for a local outreach and we contacted the nursing home and said we’d like to make a small presentation to all the vets they have,” Paul said.
The money was to be deposited into the veterans’ accounts at Andover Village Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation.
Post 226 raised the money through a raffle it conducted on Memorial Day with tickets sold at Sparkle Market in Andover.
“We raised about $1,000 through the raffle,” Paul said. “The community supported us a lot. We sold out before we intended to.”
“One, we’re super grateful to Sparkle Market for allowing us to do that on two busy Saturday mornings,” Paul continued. “The entire time on those Saturday mornings all of us were out there, we were busy the entire four hours each of those two Saturdays. We sold out before the end of that second Saturday.”
As Paul and his contingent delivered the checks, they stopped and talked with each of the veterans about their service while also thanking them for their service.
“It’s big deal and, again, commonality, we all saw are commonality and we all feel like we know these people a little bit whether we do or not,” Paul said. “We know something about what they did and they know something about what we did, so the conversation starts from a point of commonality.”
“I think the interaction probably mattered more than anything,” Paul continued. “I think next year we’re probably going to look for something that is more of a token, a pin or something like that, that we can present to them, which might even be of more value to them that they can look at after we leave.”
The nursing home’s veterans appeared to truly appreciate the interaction.
“Before we talk to these people, we know something about them,” Paul said. “Across generations and eras, there’s still a lot of commonalities, even with the two ladies who were WACs (Women’s Army Corps). They were both in the army when they really weren’t allowed to be in the army. There is a service, the Women’s Army Corps. That’s a big deal. I was really surprised when I saw two women on the list. That’s really a big deal that we have some WACs who have served from this area and are still at it.”
The outreach is part of Post 226’s mission.
“What’s important to us here is that we’re trying to outreach to other veterans in the community,” Paul said. “There’s a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of veterans, out there who are keeping a low profile. By the way, that’s kind of what they taught us to do in the service. We’d like to reach out to them because I’m finding the more guys we’re pulling in, and we’re still pulling in about two guys a month and we’re pretty happy with that, from those new guys who disconnected for a long time, they’re coming back and back and ‘I feel the connection again. This is a good thing. Thank you for beating me up to join because I really appreciate what we’re doing here.’”
Members of the community can make the same kind of impact as the American Legion members.
“These people don’t get a lot of visitors,” Paul said. “I think it’s really important for folks to reach out and see, if they can, come in and help and volunteer.”