Volunteering with Veterans

Military veterans face unique challenges and hardships when reintegrating to a routine day to day life after military service. The Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building is a hub of resources, events, and community for area veterans and family members that helps ease transitional challenges and removes barriers to services and medical care. As fraternal organizations like the VFWs and American Legions begin shutting down due to lack of involvement and participation, the Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building is increasing its visibility and efforts to provide muchly needed assistance to Veterans of all generations. In efforts to better serve the population and provide an opportunity for involvement, the Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building started a volunteer program aimed at getting Veterans more involved with their community and improving upon skills for employment. A capstone project was started to create a Volunteer Manual to give direction and guidance to the program. The document is to be a living document and frequently updated to keep in time with new policies, new positions, new guidelines and personnel changes. A first version was completed and a global pandemic put an abrupt stop to the internship. The project will be further developed as the national Stay-In-Place orders are lifted