Brian Jones has tendered his resignation as Help On The Homefront (HOTH) Coordinator effective January 1, 2010.
Brian joined the HOTH team early on helping at the Hastings Vets home and rapidly took on many other duties as the Assistant Coordinator for Gregg Campbell. I gotta tell ya… Brian was a “Git ‘R Done” guy and no one stopped him when he had his mind set on accomplishing something! Brian is very active in the American Legion Riders and we will see him on the road.
Brian… thank you for being part of helping develop one of the best HOTH programs in the country. We would not be even close to where we are without you.
Replacing Brian as the State HOTH coordinator is Yvonne Zappa. Yvonne works in the Family Assistance Center out of Camp Ripley has been invaluable to me helping sort through requests from families for help. When Yvonne thinks the need is there she jumps on it. She also knows how to decline a request when she thinks that is the right answer. Yvonne’s email address is yzappa@mnpatriotguard.org and can best be reached this way. Yvonne will also be joining the Board of Directors as the HOTH Coordinator holds a seat on the Executive Committee.
Yvonne… I am so pleased you agreed to take on this additional duty. We need people of your experience to help keep driving HOTH forward.
The HOTH program has a fuzzy description and understanding and some of that is by design. By not having something rigid we could change it quickly as we learned what the real needs are of the program here in Minnesota.
The easiest way to think of the program is in these three areas;
1. Support of the Vets Homes and Hospitals including Walter Reed and Brooke Army Medical Centers if military members from Minnesota are there
2. Support of WIA military members
3. Support of the Family Assistance Centers in helping the families of the deployed
I want to thank the HOTH teams for their great support of our Vets. Our newest center that we are working with is the Silver Bay home and the Hibbing and Duluth teams are having a ball doing it! They have a Meet and Greet every month before they go to visit and play bingo.
The Fucile’s work very hard at the Minneapolis and Hastings home and I ask the metro membership try to find some time to help them out by attending. They are making a big difference to these vets.
State Coordinator – Yvonne Zappa
Assistant Coordinator – Open
Three Regional HOTH Representatives:
Northern Representative – Mike Sams
Metro Representative – John Foster
Southern Representative – Gary Miller
HOTH Veteran's Home/Medical Center Representatives:
MPLS Representative – Joe Fucile
Hastings Representative – Pat Fucile
Luverne Representative – Buck Underwood
Fergus Falls Representative – Dave Brimer
St. Cloud Representative – Yvonne Scheeler
Silver Bay Representative – Pete Prudhomme
If you are interested in learning more about Help on The Homefront Contact Yvonne Zappa at yzappa@mnpatriotguard.org
Please thank Brian for his contributions and wish Yvonne good luck in her new role.
Happy New Year to all of you and I hope we all find peace and prosperity in 2010.
