The American Legion post I am a member of is an award winning post. We do a lot of good things for veterans and the community. I am on a committee which is charged with increasing the membership of the post. Naturally, we want to recruit any veteran who is willing, but we want to especially concentrate on the crop of more recent veterans. Too many of us "gray heads"..we'll need replacements.
I would like to get a list of recently returned veterans to the area, but for obvious reasons the VA is not eager to provide that information.
If you have suggestions on how to get such info, tell me please...
Right now, we are working on ideas as to what might attract the newer veterans. Here's some of what we have come up with so far;
1) Put up a table at local venues such as stock car, motorcycle and horse events.
2) We are putting on a Legion event inviting the veterans & community to it in mid August. Free burgers, dogs, events, bounce pen & other things for kids.
3) keeping younger veterans with young families in mind, having a "family event" for Legionaires once a month.
4) Turning the entire post toward a "family friendly" environment..we figure these young veterans have just spent much time away from family and now may want to include them in their Legion post .
Any other suggestions would be most welcome.