Team Minot helps furnish veteran homes

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Apryl Hall
  • Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  Several Minot Airmen delivered furniture and home goods to six new home-owning veterans in Minot, June 16.

Through the Minot Community Action Partnership's housing program, homeless veterans are given places to live while they get back on their feet. Although the program offers shelter where there was none, the veterans are still without many essential items.

In order to take the program a step further, the first sergeants and the Officer's Spouses Club worked together to provide the veterans with more. During the recent months, first sergeants collected around $100,000 in furniture donations from Airmen and their families. In the meantime, the OSC put together gift baskets full of home goods, including dishes, utensils, towels, gift cards and other helpful items.

"These veterans were homeless or very near homeless," said Senior Master Sgt. Gordy Evarts, 5th Logistics Readiness Squadron first sergeant. "Some were living in their car or under a bridge. It's a vicious cycle that these folks are stuck in and this program breaks that cycle."

Although only six veterans' homes were supplied this time around, the groups hope to furnish up to 25 homes by the time the items run out. The process of delivering the items is the fun part, Evarts said.

"We wanted it to be hand-delivered and somewhat of a formal thing," Evarts said. "It's something that they've been waiting for for a long time and it's great to be able to help out."

Being able to help military veterans makes the process even more special, Evarts added.

"They were overjoyed to get this stuff," Evarts said. "Being able to give back to folks who served and help them get past these hard times and back on their feet is really special."

For Janell Roy, Minot Community Action Partnership housing program specialist, the collaboration with the base has been a great success, she said.

"I'm so excited about this connection!" Roy said. "Current military members know what the veterans have gone through and understand them better."

So far, Roy's feedback from the veterans has been overwhelming, she said. A moment she will always remember is when a veteran who had been living in a post-flood, abandoned house expressed to her how grateful he was for her program and the base for saving his life.

"They were so excited, and I know they are so appreciative," Roy said. "The fact that people from the base came down to help them, I think, makes the biggest difference."

In the coming weeks, Evarts and others will continue to deliver furniture and gift baskets to the veterans. Due to the special connection between current military members and the veterans, the efforts to support them will not stop when the supplies run out.

"We've linked up with the Community Action Partnership, and that's a relationship we've managed to create and build so the base can help these veterans," Evarts said. "We'll continue to help them, and the base will continue to help them through that relationship."