Veterans Gather at Summit

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Created on Sunday, 15 March 2015 23:48

Written by Vincent Boccanfuso

LYNDON - The 3^rd annual Veterans summit at Lyndon State College was a huge success as it attracted veterans from our back yards and beyond to congregate with other veterans and to listen seminars about how to deal with issues that some may face.

Support from the community was the key factor to the success for the Summit. Gary Moore put in his two cents, “To me what will be most memorable will be the people that showed up, and the people that have been supportive.”

One of the events on the schedule was the dedication of the Veterans room at Lyndon State College, to Gary Moore. Moore is an Alumni of Lyndon State College and was formerly on the Vermont State College Board of Trustees.

“I’m humbled to have this room named after me. Obviously, I consider it a great honor.” Moore said, “I would have been honored it happened at any of our five colleges, but especially honored that it’s the one that I graduated from”

The president of Lyndon State College’s Veterans club Dyllan Durham was part of the planning committee, “A little over 70 people have touched this project. Over the past six month we’ve had several meetings, whether here at the college or Q Burke Mountain, and other miscellaneous location with miscellaneous amount of people.”

In attempts to keep the summit alive, this year the organization committee brought in different keynote speakers so people who have came back each year have different speakers to hear.

A change, which was taken for the better was to have a larger opportunity to go to a break out session to look at what it’s like to be a female veteran because when most people think of veterans, women don’t come to mind.

Durham said, “Our goal was really to have a well rounded summit where everyone no matter how old they were or what gender they are, or even what service they were in, can really get a lot out of it.”

Along with the break out sessions, in the parking lot there was a Mobile Surgery Unit, which is used mostly at Veteran Administrations, and a Mobile Single Unit Pallet, which purpose is a hospital or living corridor over seas.

Mark Jenks was there as a representative for Mobile Medical International Corporation was in attendance. “We would like to see the veterans to see that a local company, we build these in St. Johnsbury from the ground up. We support what the veterans do. For a lot of veterans they haven’t see mobile single unit pallets that pop up in 8 minutes, they are used to the old shelters, so it’s nice to see the Veterans get the wow factor.”

The hope is for the summit to keep growing each year in size, and get more vendors to provide help to Veterans in need.