Pennsylvania DAV Chapter 75 What We Do

Disabled American Veterans Pennsylvania Chapter 75 isn’t highly visible in the community. Persons don’t congregate at our clubhouse; there isn’t one. One may see a DAV van on the road as we transport veterans to medical services. We serve all veterans with the bulk of our projects aimed at disabled veterans. Our members raise money through raffles, the sale of Forget-Me-Nots, and we have some very generous groups that sponsor events and donate the proceeds to our chapter. We offer activities for institutional bound veterans, transportation for those that need medical care, and dignity for needy veterans that have fallen on hard times. What we do is serve veterans.

Our largest project is our fleet of three DAV vans for transporting veterans to medical services. We purchase a new van every year, and 3 years later rotate them out with about 130,000 miles on them. We work in concert with the transportation section of the VA Medical Center in Erie, Pa. The VA subsidizes the vans, but we donate $11,500 toward the purchase price of each 2-wheel drive and $13,000 for each of our 4-wheel drive vehicles. Very often all three vans are on the road each weekday.

Last year, we serviced 889 Warren County veterans. The vans were driven 85,702 miles. There are about 20 volunteers that donated 3,345 volunteer hours, most of whom are not DAV members. The dirvers transport our veterans to Erie, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and our new clinic in Warren.

Any veteran needing transportation for medical services may call Lanae Shubert at the Warren County Veterans Affairs Office at 728-3477. Lanae coordinates the logistics of matching veterans’ appointments with the volunteer drivers.

We always need drivers. If you could donate some of your time and like to drive, we would appreciate your help. Phone Lanae at 728-3477. She can tell you about the program and what is required in order to drive a DAV van. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

The activities most looked forward to by our institutionalized veterans are our fishing parties. Twice a year the residents of the VA Hospital Erie, the Erie Soldier’s and Sailor’s Home, and veterans at the Warren State Hospital are invited to come fish with us. We have facilities for and like to get wheelchair bound vets to join us.

We rent a building on a small stream with a concrete walk at the water’s edge and put on an all day event of fishing and a catered meal. This would not be possible without the generosity of The Sheffield Rod and Gun Club, and The Farnsworth Trout Club. Those clubs provide the fish that are stocked just for our veterans. Additionally, The Safari Club of Pittsburgh makes a substantial donation and members arrive from Pittsburgh to help make the veteran’s day a pleasant one. It is very heart warming to see these persons who gave so much enjoy themselves outside the institutions for a day.

There are persons from Warren County that are permanent residents at the VA Medical Center in Erie. We donate to bingo parties, summer picnics, and Christmas parties at VAMC Erie. Additionally, we donate for transportation from Erie to other medical facilities when Erie cannot provide specific medical services for our veterans.

The Erie Soldier’s and Sailor’s Home also receives our attention. We donated to the new Dementia Unit they just opened. They receive help from us for their Summer Home Week, which is an all week event of activities for their residents. We don’t forget them at Christmas either.

The veterans at the Warren State Hospital all get a card and a canteen book on their birthday. At Christmas, they receive a gift and another canteen book, and on Valentine’s Day, we throw a party for them with pizza and music for entertainment. The veterans receive a small gift on Valentine’s Day usually some much-needed socks.

We rent a camp for disabled veterans that hunt in this area every year.

Locally, we donate to needy veteran’s families that have fallen on hard times, and give turkeys to the Salvation Army for veteran’s families. We’ve donated to the Vietnam Veterans Postage Project that sends packages to servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Boy Scouts’ Treats for Troops, which sent popcorn to the troops through the USO. We are contributors to the Warren County Monument Restoration Program. An annual donation is given to the Sheffield VFW Hospital Equipment Project where county veterans can go for hospital beds, walkers, etc. Additionally, we sponsor a Veterans Day dinner for county disabled veterans and their families.

At the national and state levels we contribute to the DAV National Service Van, which processes claims and does service work. While they are in our area, we coordinate their visit and provide refreshments. We contribute to the DAV Hospitals Coordinator Program, the Pennsylvania Scotland School for veteran’s children, the wheel chair basketball team “Steelwheelers,” and the DAV National Winter Games, where disabled vets, many of which are amputees, learn winter sports. We contribute generously to the DAV National Program that sends DAV Service Vans to disaster areas and gives grants to disabled veterans. Recently, they aided victims of hurricane Katrina and the year before victims in Florida.

All of the things we do would not be possible without the generosity of some fine people. Every year Charlie Brant and Tim Fields dedicate one of their Kinzua Allegheny Walleye Association fishing tournaments as the Disabled American Veterans Benefit Tournament. They work extremely hard for months to put on the fishing tournament and then unselfishly donate the proceeds to us.

“Grizzly” Gary Wert of Grizzly Gary Productions organizes the annual game dinner at the Russell Firehall and various Disabled Veterans benefits throughout the year. Brant and Fields help Gary and these guys make a donation to us from the profits.

Doug Yohe, owner of the Willows Restaurant outside of Bradford, and a committee of hard workers hold the annual Disabled American Veterans Willowcreek Triathlon. Participants have come as far as from Alexandria, Virginia. The proceeds of that event are donated to both the McKean and Warren County Disabled Veterans.

American Legion Post 658 has also been a substantial donor to our van program.

We cannot thank our donors, both large and small, enough. When you see us selling Forget-Me-Nots or raffle tickets or a group is working to make donations to us, we appreciate your generosity. But mostly, our veterans appreciate and thank you for your generosity. Anyone that would like to donate may send a check to DAV Chapter 75, %Daniel A Reiff, Treasurer, 116 Redwood St., Warren, PA 16365.

Many of our active members are WWII veterans. We’ve seen an unfortunate number of them pass on. Like other local organizations, to continue with our projects we need more active members. We urge all of our present members who are not active to join us. We need your help. We are also looking for new members to join that were involved in any of the conflicts since Vietnam.

To be eligible to join the Disabled American Veterans one must: 1. be VA rated at 0%…non-compensable or greater, or; 2. be a Purple Heart recipient with no VA claim, or; 3. be on VA disability compensation. Come to one of our meetings to join.

Meetings are the 1st Tuesday of every month at 7:00 pm at the Starbrick Fire Hall.