Veterans Stand Down 2023

As the community relations specialist, I helped the Veterans Services Officer, Michael McNey, plan a veterans stand down event. 

 

Stand downs are events providing supplies and services to Veterans, such as food, shelter, clothing, health screenings and VA Social Security benefits counseling. Veterans can also receive referrals to other assistance such as health care, housing solutions, employment, substance use treatment and mental health counseling. They are collaborative events, coordinated between local VA Medical Centers, the Department of Labor, other government agencies and community-based homeless service providers.

 

We started planning the event in January and I quickly found myself promoting the event that same day. I wanted to get as many veterans involved as possible. I was having meetings regularly with the local media and veteran organizations to promote the event as much as I could.

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Since I already had a great relationship established with the local media, The Laurinburg Exchange and WLNC Radio ran daily advertisements about the event. A few weeks before the event, we were guests on WLNC's morning radio show, ''Live On Main,'' to promote the event. 

 

For the event planning, I was also responsible for vendor registration. Our goal was to have 20 vendors registered by the cut off date on March 30th. The day before the event, we had 40 vendors registered, and the morning of the event, we had organizations wanting to participate at the last minute. 

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Overall, the event was a huge success! An estimated 300 veterans and their families attended the event, and their needs were taken care of.