Woman’s Club Fundraiser For Returning Veterans—

Honor Them With Flags At The Soldiers & Sailors Monument

By Shannon Hicks

The Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC, Inc is hoping that a fundraiser it has launched will fill the lawn surrounding the Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Main Street with flags by Sunday, June 14. Each flag that goes into the ground between Memorial Day and Flag Day (June 14) will represent a donation of $5 to honor any former or current serving member of the US Armed Forces.

The money that is raised through this fundraiser will then be used by the Woman’s Club to support and supply The Veterans Oasis Program at all public colleges and universities in Connecticut. This fundraiser is one of three currently being hosted by the Woman’s Club (see related info in box).

Newtown’s club is joining approximately 50 General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) clubs across the state that have committed to The Oasis Project. Marion Thompson, chairman of Newtown Woman’s Club GFWC Public Affairs Committee, will lead the local club in raising funds for “this very worthwhile project set up to aid our military veterans adjust as they return to their private lives, having served in a military zone,” Mrs Thompson said this week.

“I think it’s an important thing, and it’s for men and women,” she said. “Every veteran can benefit from these centers.”

Right now there are 275,000 Connecticut veterans who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, 14,600 of whom are women.

“We may be a woman’s club, but we’re helping men and women through this project,” Mrs Thompson emphasized.

 “Veterans [have] told us that after serving in a war combat zone for several years in military service, they yearn for a safe community environment to gather among themselves, meet each other face to face, to discuss their experiences [and/or] their struggles, and plan to find suitable ways to reenter society,” Gloria Hutchison, chairman of The GFWC-CT Veterans Oasis Committee posted on her web page that explains the project..

In October 2007 Governor M. Jodi Rell and Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Linda Schwartz put together a plan to create a room at each public college and university where student veterans can gather, support one another, and get information to help them succeed in college. Bethel Woman’s Club is credited with sponsoring and proposing “Vets Oasis” as a two-year project, running 2008-10, and the proposal was adopted into plan at the state level during the GFWC-CT 2008 Spring Convention.

One goal of the Oasis Centers is to allow veterans to get what they have earned without a lot of delay and paperwork, according to GFWC-CT notes. The new campus centers would be staffed 24 hours a day by student workers who are veterans, and will be a place where veterans can learn of the state and federal services available to them.

Another goal of the Oasis Centers is to make nonstudents feel welcome on campus so that in turn, they will more than likely become students in the future.

The first year has seen women’s clubs concentrating on getting the Vets Oasis areas up and running. During the second year of the project, the woman’s clubs are concentrating on doing what they can to help the returning veterans transition into the community. This part of the project, wrote Mrs Hutchison, will include “an all-out effort to furnish the Vets Oasis areas at the colleges, to find and donate certain items needed, to raise funds to donate [and] to recommend community resources for veterans’ needs.”

Newtown Club’s Fundraiser

The Newtown Woman’s Club fundraiser will follow the state project’s suggestion to help raise funds and furnish Oasis Centers.

Cemetery flags, which measure 8 by 12 inches, can be reserved by anyone in and around Newtown, and will be planted between Memorial Day and Flag Day at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Main Street. Flags are $5 each and can be purchased to honor any current or former serving members of the US Armed Forces.

Fliers have been posted around town with order forms, or a check can be mailed to Newtown Woman’s Club, PO Box 101, Newtown CT 06470.

Each flag will have a ribbon attached to it indicating the name and rank of the person being honored, so those making the donations should clearly print what they would like to appear on the ribbon. Also indicate the service branch and dates of service.

The name of purchaser, mailing address and telephone number, the number of flags being ordered and a check to cover the flags being ordered should all be included in the mailing. The club is requesting that donations be received by May 21.

For additional information or to order a flag for the Woman’s Club Oasis Fundraiser, contact Marion Thompson at 426-0253 or Marilyn Alexander, 426-6340.