Cresswind At Lake Lanier Veterans Club
Minutes from the July 16, 2024, GENERAL Membership meeting
Board Members Present:
Amy DeVillez, Rosemarie Bower, Kandi Andrade, Kevin Pearson, Robin Dickson,
Carl Lambrecht and Jim Snell
Members enjoyed some pizza and other treats before the meeting.
The meeting was called to order by Amy at 4:30 p.m. All joined in the pledge of Allegiance.
Rosemarie gave the prayer.
NEW MEMBERS: Amy welcomed our newest members.
PRESENTATION OF CHECKS: The board presented John Prentice and Ken Gossage from Good News at Noon Shelter with a check for $2,000; Ron Crow from the VFW Post 8452 with a $1,100 check; and Brenda Key (Paige &Tracie too) from Helping Hands of Hall County with a check for $1,000 for Veterans in need.
VETERANS IN NEED REPORT: Amy shared that since our last quarterly meeting that was held in April, we have helped 4 Veterans and their families. We helped with rent, car, and mortgage payments totaling $8,589.18.
#1.Vet, single father with baby, working full time and going to school fulltime. (One year left and will have a Bachelor of Business).
#2. Vet, single mother of 2 boys (5 and 13 years old). She is working full-time now here in Gainesville. She was commuting to Athens, but expenses were overwhelming.
#3. Vet, gentleman whose wife left him due to his severe PTSD. He signed himself into Emory Hospital in Atlanta for a 2 week stay, in their Veteran PTSD intense therapy program. Also, we found out that his wife will be going to marriage counseling with him.
#4. This is a tough one, a 44 yr. disabled vet, married, both are not working for two years. They both filed for SS disability and were denied multiple times. Wanted much more money than we were willing to help. This required tough love and they needed to figure out how to handle this themselves.
VIDEO PRESENTATION BY KEVIN: Kevin shared a video that he put together for our Veterans Club.
Fantastic video! Thank you, Kevin, for doing this.
FINANCIAL REPORT: Kandi shared with the members that the balance in checking is $84,618.41.
She shared our expenses so far for the year. Folks were asked to contact her if they had any further questions.
Flag Club: Officially under the Veterans Club beginning this month, please welcome Rob and Joyce Plaweski who will continue to oversee the club. Moving forward, Kandi is our treasurer for Veterans Club. She manages our non-profit account. Rob will manage the Flag Club’s account, which is not a non-profit account.
RAFFLE DRAWING: We had four lucky winners who each received a $25 gift card from Lowe’s.
NEW BOARD MEMBERS for 2025: Rosemarie encouraged our members to start considering running for the board. We will have some folks stepping down and want to continue with a 7-person board.
2025 SCHOLARSHIPS: We will be giving a total of four $3k Scholarships. The board approved at the last meeting to increase from 3 to 4 scholarships for 2025. Two $3k scholarships will go to two Veterans attending the UNG Gainesville campus, and two $3k scholarships will go to two Veterans/Cadets in good standing in the Corps of Cadets at UNG Dahlonega (The Cresswind Commandant’s Choice Scholarship).
NEXT GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING: Will be held on Tuesday, October 15th at 4:00pm. We will have guest speakers from UNG Gainesville Campus and Corps of Cadet UNG Dahlonega. Members will have a chance to meet some Veteran students.
Amy thanked everyone for attending.
Meeting Adjourned at 5:20 p.m.
We had 77 members in attendance.
Respectfully submitted,
Rosemarie Bower, secretary