Nov. 12, Monday, in honor of Veterans Day, all veterans and their guests in the community are invited to the Hall for dinner. Jim Singer, Joe Gelarden and John Druce will be making a presentation on their trip to the USMC Museum in Virginia and the military monuments in D.C. Please call or text (751-5672), or email Dave Patch (dapatch@roadrunner.com) to reserve a spot or two. So, veterans, please join us for a great evening!

At a recent meeting of the Maine Veterans Coordinating Committee MVCC), the Acting Director of Togus Healthcare system announced that in 2019 Togus will be providing valet parking. Veterans just have to pull up to building 200 (main hospital) or building 205 (primary care doctors) and valets will be at those locations to park their cars. Other news from Togus is that disability claims processed by the regional Office in the 3rd quarter was rated number 1 of the 56 regional offices. They were number 49 of the 56 in 2017. The MVCC (VA leadership and all representatives of all the veteran service organizations) meets at the Augusta Maine Veterans Home (310 Cony Rd.) the first Monday of each month at 6 p.m. and is open to all. The next meeting is Nov. 5.

There will be a new VA clinic in Portland that will have a relationship with Maine Medical Center. Bids for the construction of the facility have been submitted and are being reviewed with selection in early 2019. The facility is expected to be opened in 2020.

A new hotel (The Fisher’s House) is being built at Togus that will provide free lodging for veteran families who have veterans being treated at Togus. This facility is expected to open in 2019.

The Volunteers of American, in partnership with the VA/Togus, have built 21 small homes (Cabin in the Woods) on the Togus property for homeless veteran families. The homes were open this summer and 19 are already occupied. To qualify, a veteran has to be employed with 1/3 of his or her salary paying the rent. In 2016 there were a total of 116,782 Maine veterans, 9,074 of them were female, 188 of them were homeless.

There are still openings for Vietnam veterans and spouses to attend the Camp Kieve Vietnam Veterans Camp Dec. 3-7. While it is referred to as a “camp,” the lodging provided is in hotel style rooms in the Kieve conference facility. For more information, and to apply, go to www.kieve.org.

Please join us at our next breakfast Oct. 14. The last breakfast for the year will be Nov. 4.