Green Rock-Colona American Legion

Post 1233

 Community Service  Overview “2005-2006”

Care of Community Property

          Post provided seven new flags to be used at the memorial park for observance of patriotic holidays. Flags were presented to city council by the

Jr. Auxiliary.

          Our ALR Escorted in and provided security for the moving Vietnam memorial Wall in Erie, IL.

          Several members participated in the “healing fields”, a memorial for the fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also helped provide security at this three day event.

Christmas Baskets

          Monetary donations were given to local food pantry which distributes to our community.  Members also help with the distribution.

Color Guard

          Attends visitations and funeral services, rifle squad performs a rifle salute, playing of taps, and presenting the American flag to the next of kin.    Veterans Day, Memorial Day and other ceremonies were performed at schools and other dedications.

Community Activities in Legion Home

          Donated hall and helped with several benefits, for example we held a benefit for a member to help pay for medical expenses after having brain surgery.

          Six of our members donated four hours per week to help with the weekly bingo night at our post.

          ABATE host their meetings at our hall once a month.

          Colona Civic development group holds meetings at our post monthly

We also have several fundraisers at our post for various causes.

          We have made several improvements to our legion hall and had lots of members help out.

          We donate the use of our hall for all non profit organizations.

Community Park Development

Legion donated 6 service flags for memorial park in Colona to use in observance of patriotic holidays. These flags were presented to city council by our Jr. Auxiliary.

Community Recreation Program

Our post paid for rental of bounce house for holiday festival at Colona School, and four members chaperoned.

Community Service Veterans Affairs

Six hundred hours of community service logged for taking veterans to VA hospital in Iowa City by Legion members of our post. (8.5 to 10 hours per trip). We have recognized these outstanding legionaries for their hard work and dedication to our veteran’s health care.

$750 was donated or raised for local serviceman, Dustin Hill, severely injured in Iraq. We also participated in a benefit/poker run.

          Prior to July 31^st The ALR collected over $5,000 worth of comfort and other items for veterans home located in Quincy Illinois. 30 American Legion Riders and post members delivered a sixteen foot trailer full from nose to tail one hundred fifty- three miles to the veterans’ home. We also helped out with their bingo activity. We helped them serve lunch at the Past Commanders Picnic while we visited with the veterans. We were given a tour of the facilities and invited back next year.  ALR has made this an annual event and has already started plans for this years Quincy run. Our challenge is to fill a 53 foot semi trailer. We have already received a donation offer from a local trucking company to supply the tractor, trailer, fuel and driver.  The items were greatly appreciated by the veterans and the time spent with them was very special to as well as them.

Disaster Relief

While one of our members was deployed in Iraq, a massive storm blew out his wife’s window. Our Post bought a new window, and installed it at their home.

Education Week and School Awareness

We donated $500 to Red Ribbon Week, and donated time talking to Jr. High students about the dangers of drug abuse. The post also donated two television sets and four DVD players to Colona grade school.

Emergency Shelter

Our post is a recognized emergency shelter, and we have purchased and stocked several commodities that would be helpful in case our shelter was needed.

Erection of Flag Poles and Memorials

We have erected a new flag pole at our post, and dedicated it to one of our long time members. Also we support several memorials in our area with new flags, such as City hall and Colona School.

Flag Education

We have purchased a DVD from emblem sales that has been shown at the Colona grade school by one of our members on the proper treatment of the United States flag. We also passed 200 pamphlets that say “Let’s be right on flag etiquette”. Also we had a flag demonstration for the Boy Scouts of America.

Get Out the Voters

Our legion hosts a state dinner by the Democratic Party, and a barbeque for the Republican Party. We have several members whom are extremely active in the community and politics.

Observance of Patriotic Holidays

Our rifle squad performs a salute, playing of taps at local cemeteries on Memorial Day.  The Honor Guard led the Memorial Day parade and the other entities enter floats.  We also fire and perform other ceremonies at schools and other dedications.  Our ALR also rode in the Memorial day parade as well as a secquentinial parade in Aledo IL.

Oratorical Contest

We have one member who handles the oratorical at Colona grade school.

Projects for Drug Abuse

Legionaires Against Drugs, L.A.D., supplied pencils and other information pertaining to being drug free and the fight against drug abuse. Members of the post and LAD committee supervise bounce house booth, distributed prizes and information pertaining to LAD.

          In October of 2005, our Legion called a meeting at City Hall to address a problem. The D.A.R.E program had discontinued, and there was no longer a drug prevention programs being thought at our schools.

          Our Legion prepared a presentation for a meeting with City Hall officials. We had; the mayor, chief of police, fire chief, school superintendent, and community service officer present at the meeting. By the end of our presentation the school has agreed to implement L.A.D. “project alert” into the schools curriculum beginning at the second semester.

          Project Alert is a statistically proven drug prevention program, and it is also sponsored by the State of Illinois. We purchased the Project Alert Curriculum, and all other materials required to teach the program. One of our members, officer Kernan, also went through the training required by the state to teach the curriculum. He teaches 2 classes per week.

          We have formed a L.A.D. committee of eight members and several members of the community to help this program be a success.

          Our hopes are to do better than the D.A.R.E program by obtaining higher quality educational curriculum   for the youth of our community.

 This Community service program is one of the most respected projects our legion has ever been involved in. Our community is grateful for this service

 Projects for Health and Research

The ALR and members sponsored a fundraiser for paralyzed veterans of America. We bought and sold bracelets then donated the full amount back to their cause.

 Senior Citizens Assistance

One of our officer’s volunteers at the senior citizens center weekly in the name of the American Legion. We also have two Handicapped accessible ramps installed this year for our post and several for other members of our community.

 We keep walkers, wheelchairs, and other equipment at our post to lend to our members and community as needed. We have two members who manage these items.

Sons of The American Legion

          The Sons of the American Legion have been helpful in many legion events; they have held fundraisers and involve themselves in several community projects. They have participated in Poker runs for benefits, and helped with our memorial day parade with a float. The sons also help our Honor Guard place markers on veteran’s graves on Memorial Day. The Sons host the Taco dinner every Thursday night during our card tournament.

Toys for the Under Privileged

We are a proud supporter of Toys for Tots. We support them monetarily and our members have volunteered in several events to support the Marine Corps Reserve with Toys for tots.

We also sponsored the Colona School Holiday festival Legion riders, and legion members paid for a Bounce House and donated money to purchase hats and gloves for children at Colona School. Members also helped with the shopping and distribution of these items.  

 Youth Activities

Our Legion sponsored a Fishing Derby on the Hennepin Canal. We had prizes for the biggest fish, smallest fish, most fish and the least fish! This was “an open to public” event and we had a great time.

Other (Message from the Home Front)

          In August of 2005 at our monthly legion meeting it was suggested to the board and members that the American Legion “the largest veteran’s organization in the world” should be more involved in supporting our service members overseas.  The Green Rock-Colona American Legion board and membership felt it necessary for our post to initiate a legion sponsored activity to do just that.

In that same meeting in August it was passed to make a video of deployed service member’s families to send to our troops serving abroad.  The timing was critical for this project due to the fact that the mail running overseas is only guaranteed to get there by Christmas if it is sent by mid November.

The date for the project was set for November 13^th 2005 and called “Message from the Home Front” with November 13^th closing in fast we had a lot to get done with little time to do it.  A few of our members that have computer backgrounds volunteered to coordinate the cameras, computers, and networking.  There were a total of 21 computers on three networks with three cameras enabling us to handle several hundred videos to be sent overseas. Other members solicited non monetary donations from local businesses while technical details where being resolved.

The same members that where handling the computers also produced a professional commercial for the event that was played on Fox News and CNN. They also produced a press release to run as a P.S.A. (Public Service Announcement); which allowed them to receive ample air time on 3 of our local television channels.

This event required more computer literate members than we had, so we hosted a training class which enabled us to train enough volunteers on the software and equipment to handle the expected response.  Even though the demand was high we had an abundant amount of volunteers supporting our project.

Due to the complexity of this project all of our legion entities and community volunteers were involved in order for this project to be a success.  The Honor Guard put on a breakfast buffet, the Women’s Auxiliary served lunch, The Sons of the Legion took charge of beverages for the day, and the Legion Riders hosted a steak dinner. The support we had for this project is a testimonial of the patriotism of our community and of our post members.

November 13^th 2005 the day of the event was at hand. Even though we where very busy; all operations were running very smooth.  Due to our extensive advertising we had the support of three local news stations on set during and after the event with live coverage via satellite.  We also had the support of local newspapers, local dignitaries, politicians, and members that have not been active in years.

In closing we would like to say “even though we have over two thousand man hours and just under a nine hundred dollars in this project; it was all worth every second when we seen the deep gratitude of the families of the deployed service members.”  Our post takes great pride in keeping with the highest traditions of the American Legion.  Since this project we have been thanked and complemented both written and verbally by the family and friends who were fortunate enough to take part in “Message from the Home Front.”

       This year has been one of the best years we have ever had for community service. Our community service has been very beneficial in obtaining several goals as a Legion. Our membership this year has grown to an “ALL TIME HIGH” and we feel it was a direct result of community service.

          We look forward to exceeding this years report with next years report, We have a lot planned and lots of dedicated legionaries to get the job done.