VVA Clermont County Chapter 649 January 2021 Newsletter

January 14 Membership Meeting Will Not Be Held

VVA 649 Meetings

VVA 649 meets the second Thursday of every month.

NEXT MEETING: Feb 11th

LOCATION To Be Determined Meeting at 6:30 PM

AVVA Membership Associates of Vietnam Veterans

Members actively participate

and work in supporting VVA.

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The mission of Chapter 649 of the Vietnam Veterans of America is to provide fellowship, advocacy, education about veter-an benefits, as well as financial assistance, as appropriate, to veterans of all eras, pursuant to the founding principle of the Vietnam Veterans of America, “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.”

On December 16th, the VVA 649 Board voted remotely by phone and email to cancel the January Membership Meeting due to the continued increase in cases of Covid-19. The Board will revisit the situation in late January and decide if we should have a February meeting. Our decision will be announced in the February newsletter. Please see page 4 for more information.

Memorial Bricks Order Now

Forms at www.vva649.org

December Business of the Month

Chaplains Corner Happy New Year! Let’s stay positive and say 2021 is going to be a very good year. We have so much to thank God for every day. We are

truly blessed. Keep our military service men and women, our nurses, doctors and first re-

The December VVA Chapter 649 Business of the Month award was presented to The Har-vest Market in Milford for their support of Chapter 649’s mission, golf outing and meet & greet. The certificate was presented by Ken Williamson to

business owners Ben and Maureen Redman.

sponders in your prayers. Thanks to each and every one of you for your Christmas cards. Until next time God Bless

you and God Bless America. Stay positive!

Chaplain Bill Graybill 513-316-5515.

The VVA Veteran printed edition may soon be published again. The magazine is always published on-line. The link to read it on your computer is www.vvaveteran.org

http://www.vvaveteran.org

VVA 649 January 2021 PAGE 2

January Birthdays

Birthday Information If your birthday has not appeared here this month or anytime this year, or if the date is not

accurate, please contact Ken Williamson with the correct information. 513-260-6501

Seventeen chapter and AVVA members were active in selling tickets for our annual raffle this year. Alt-hough we got off to a late start because of the Covid19 virus we were able to raise $5210 thanks to a late rally from chapter members who responded by purchasing tickets included in our November newsletter.

The newsletter tickets alone raised the raffle total by more than $1,200. Besides the purchase of raffle tickets, VVA649 members made additional dona-tions of $190. Again, thanks to all who participated in this year’s raffle fundraiser.

The winner was notified immediately by Mark Brandon, VVA649 Treasurer and a check was mailed upon receipt of a W-4 signed by the winner.

VVA 649 $1000 Raffle Winner Ticket #0194

With the assistance of Michael Newman, VVA 649 2nd Vice President, the winning ticket was drawn by Everything Bagels employee Leslie Engel.

01 / 03- Richard Willenbrink

01 / 05- Eddie R. Brierly

01 / 09- Neda Nutley AVVA

01 / 09- Scott Butdres - AVVA

01 / 10- Paul Bunthoff

01 / 18- David Snider

01 / 19- Ralph Walters

01 / 20- Calvin Sheap

01 / 20- Carolyn Maupin

01 / 20- Robert Lehmkuhl

01 / 21- William Bath - AVVA

01 / 24- Robert Flinders

01 / 25- John Moermond

01 / 26- Don Chandler

01 / 26- Ruby Bath - AVVA

01 / 27- Bernard McKinley

01 / 28- Wally Clark

01 / 28- John Hatfield

Happy Birthday to all those below and a special belated birthday wish to: Life Member Gerold Wilkin who’s birthday was December 9th.

For nearly twenty years Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America (AVVA) has pro-moted the distribution and use of their Paper Safes. We all know that we are not going to live forever, and the hardest thing for our families and friends is trying to deal with all the unknown details when we are gone or become incapacitated.

The Paper Safe, designed with Veterans in mind, is a twenty-page document with space

to easily contain all your personal information like medical contacts, funeral arrange-ments, attorney and will location, assets inventory, automobile titles, bank accounts, life

insurance information and more. Even if you already have a Will or Trust, the Paper Safe can allow you to put all that information, along with all the other details that someone would need, in one simple to find place.

Our Chapter AVVA Representative, Joyce Newman, has received a large supply of Paper Safes and

will deliver one free to any Chapter 649 member on request. You can leave a message for Joyce at 513-720-6881.

VVA 649 January 2021 PAGE 3

Christmas Gifts Distributed

For over ten years Chapter 649 has been delivering food and gifts to needy veterans’ families in Clermont County. It started with a canned goods collection from members and expanded to adding hams or turkeys and household items. As we all got older the boxes of canned goods got heavier and we also discovered that not everyone has the same tastes, so we switched to giving gift cards.

Typically, the money raised from the golf outing and passing the donation box at our meetings has helped fund the annual Christmas donations. The money raised in 2019 funded this year’s gifts. The money for next year’s 2021 gifts was raised in 2020.

This year we had ten families who each received a Kroger gift card for $225 and a Visa gift card for $200.

We also include a Christmas card signed from Chapter 649 and a self-addressed stamped envelope so recip-ients can tell us about their Christmas.

The drivers who helped distribute the gifts are pictured above: Mark Brandon, Steve Tam, Don Shep-pard, Phil Dodge and Michael Newman. Navigators not pictured were Joel Foreman, Joyce Newman,

Laverne Sheppard and Ken Williamson.

Two-Day Meet and Greet at Everything Bagels.

On December 5th and 6th VVA649 held a Veterans Meet and Greet at Everything Bagels. Mark Brandon, Community Affairs Committee Chairman and organ-izer of the event commented, “We hold our Meet and Greet events for the primary purpose of meeting vet-erans from the community who may not be aware of benefits they are entitled to. We try to keep brochures on display from the VA, VSO and other organizations so we can refer veterans to the right place for help. Of course, we accept unsolicited donations and sell our raffle tickets when appropriate.” The following VVA649 members gave up part of their weekend to work the event; Mark Brandon, Phil Dodge, Michelle Pennington, Bruce and Neda Nutley, Ken Williamson, Ed Karlis, and Bobby Bennett. If

you have never worked a Meet and Greet, you are missing out on a worthwhile experience. The help wanted sign is always out. No experience necessary – call Mark Brandon 513-309-3568

Kim Bredenbeck – Long time VVA 649 Member, State Delegate, past Secretary - November 23, 2020

Bernard (Bud) McKinley, - December 6, 2020 New VVA649 Member

VVA 649 January 2021 PAGE 4

From the President

2021 – A Fresh Start

January first has traditionally been the day when we review the last year and make decisions about how to live our lives differently – we call it “New Year’s Resolutions”.

Much of our life was changed for us by Covid-19 and will continue to be different in 2021. As a chap-ter we had to decide when and where and if to hold our meetings and events. Four meetings were can-celled. No board meetings were cancelled. Many of those were held outside – always with masks and social distancing. Our board always had the safety of our members and families in mind when making these decisions. Some events had to be cancelled or held in modified form.

As we move forward into 2021 our list of events will remain the same as those we planned for 2020. Our annual budget will go forward unchanged. The money we raised in 2020 is adequate to fund our planned activities for 2021. Thanks to all of our members and AVVA members who volunteered to work the events and raise the funds to make our chapter successful.

The January meeting has been cancelled because of the high number of Covid-19 cases in our area. The board will make a decision toward the end of January about holding a February meeting and will

announce it in the February newsletter.

Thank you all for helping make 2020 a success. Let’s continue to make our number one New Year’s Resolution to keep ourselves and our families safe and healthy.

Got News? If you have news that you would like to see in the newsletter or a correction, Please contact: Ken Williamson at 513-260-6501

Your AVVA representative is Joyce Newman. She is looking forward to growing the membership of AVVA and is interested in your comments and ideas. Joyce can be reached at 513-720-6881.

I am writing today to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I know that 2020 has been a challenging year for most of our members. But I want to tell you that your Buckeye State Council is alive and well and performing their duties as best we can despite the lockdowns created by the Covid-19 virus. We are financially strong and capable of continuing our VSO activities from our Cleveland office as usual. Future meetings will be held as we feel safe to do so.

On the national front, as thrift stores reopen across America, we are starting to see household goods money begin to flow back into the national office and through BSC to the local chapters. National re-cently mailed a short version of The Veteran magazine to in form us of upcoming news about the na-

tional convention. You may be seeing another edition in February. I pray that you will stay safe and healthy for the new year. Thank you for your continued support through Chapter 649.

A Message from Buckeye State Council President Cliff Riley