MINUTES for 2020-02-25 FINAL - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Veterans Advisory Committee Minutes February 25, 2020 Page 14 Lewis: And if you haven't met, Wailani, who's here, he has been helping us and helping Veterans at HCC as far as Veterans support. I also invited Fresh from the Governor's office to come. Maybe we can send him a copy of the minutes. That's all I had for announcements. Chair Doolittle: Did you want to say something? Wailani Walker: Just numbers for you guys. Right now, listed 239 vets that's taking advantage of benefits. There's a lot more vets from VFW that they're not even getting benefits, but they are. They are seeking to get everything in line after finding out that our Chapter 31 exists, and they can at least get some help if they have at least 10% service related. There's about 250 that I can count that come to see me on a drop-in basis. Sad news that one of my Sergeants messed up, you probably heard about it, up in Eden Rock. That was one of my students and I just seen him couple weeks prior and then he murdered a guy with the cane or something like that happened. We're trying to figure out what's going to happen there. A lot of the vets they come in and they're stressed out, sad to say the VA doesn't really pay attention to press 1, press 2, press 3 but I'm going with them in the office while they're going through their spike because that's all they get. Finally, when a real person gets on the phone you need to get to this other extension. It's crazy but doable, the patience. Our school has the Kako'o fund, almost like the Purple Heart book fund, we can help them while they're waiting for their monies to come in, we can give them up to $500 to help them out with their books. Lewis: Thank you, Wailani. We appreciate all your help; he came in steep learning curve too. But one of the huge things that he alluded to is just the presence of someone caring about their issues, means so much. Walker: You guys know about Hope Services, they have a Vet home too on Kinoole/. They have seven beds, have to be males, sad to say, I have female vets too, I'm trying to put together a reso for our school. I used to have an all guy reso called Kaho'okane, with the growth of men and my Vice -Chancellor wants me to morph that into a growth of Veterans also. So, it's going to change, they want a safe place to hang out. No matter what line of service you're in, having that buddy connections helps. I'm learning that being a civilian, not a veteran they need their space, coffee maker, couch, someplace they can hang out, talk their life, share. Were in the process of finding space. Another veteran came up to me the other day, going to be finishing up his Bachelor's in Art, maybe could make use of the Veterans home that's supposed to be built above 7-11 by Waiakea High School. Chair Doolittle: That's an over 62 facility. Walker: Yes, he's about 70, older gentleman. But he was saying maybe he could teach Art there and live there also.