SLU employees who are military veterans are being asked to get involved. Please help spread the word to anyone at SLU who might want to get involved.
The Office of Military and Veteran Enrollment Services is also helping to start a Veterans Affinity Group at SLU for all employees at SLU who are military veterans. Military and Veteran Enrollment Services will establish a list serve and send information about upcoming events on campus specific for veterans, like the Veterans Day lunch. Tommy Lucas, a graduate assistant and doctoral candidate, is spearheading much of the activity and occupies the Military and Veterans Enrollment Services Office in DuBourg Hall, Room 15. As a part of this effort, the group would create Bylaws and a structure, but would share similar values with the Student Veterans Association to create an environment that is military friendly, and to continue to serve as men and women for others. The purpose of this group is to meet the needs of veterans at SLU. Lucas said, “It is not uncommon to see affinity groups form at large organizations like Ameren and Purina, or InBev.”
As a part of creating a military friendly culture, the Office of Military and Veteran Enrollment Services hosts a veterans lunch every Friday from 12:00-2:00 p.m. at the Billiken Grill in the Busch Student Center. All veterans are welcome to come and meet other veterans. Bring your own lunch, or buy your lunch there.
Also, the Office of Military and Veteran Enrollment Services has made aware of military personnel deploying for up to a year with SLU connections. In the effort to support deployed service members, plans to work with H.E.R.O.E.S. Care to assemble and ship care packages are underway. Yvonne McCool said, “Mr. Lucas toured H.E.R.O.E.S. Care recently and gathered a list of items that can be shipped.” The group hopes to take up a collection of items, cash for shipping and send care packages from SLU to our military deployed.
When possible, Military and Veteran Enrollment Services would like SLU's deploying military to see SLU on the way out, feel the support of SLU while gone, see SLU when they return. As members of the SLU community as well as the St. Louis metropolitan area, it would be great to show support for soldiers and their families throughout their deployment from the community.
If you are interested in supporting these efforts, please click here to complete the form being used to identify SLU employees interested in helping form the affinity group. Share this information anyone who may be interested so they can complete the Google Form as well. The Google Form allows interested members of the SLU community to indicate their desire to be a part of the group, even if not a veteran but may have a family member that is.
For additional information, e-mail Yvonne McCool at ymccoolm@slu.edu or call 314-977-8957. Yvonne served in the Air Force from 1981-1992. She was a personnel technician, and deployed to Korea in support of a joint exercise referred to as Team Spirit '85.
