Volunteer group helps veterans

ONTARIO, Ore. - When Bob Sanderson's wife, Mary Jane, became ill in 2010, the family struggled under weighty medical bills.

"The veteran advocates came to our aid," said Sanderson, who lives in Vale. "In fact, they paid our light bill."

The Veteran Advocates of Ore-Ida is a nonprofit organization in Ontario created to provide support to veterans and active duty personnel of the armed forces living in the Treasure Valley.

Sanderson, 83, was born and raised in Shaw, Miss. He entered the Army in 1950 and medically retired from the service in 1952.

"I was shot through the chest while I was somewhere in Korea," Sanderson said. "It hit a rib and went out my back."

Minutes after being shot, a mortar round hit the front of the truck Sanderson was manning.

"I was the only one that survived," he said. "I lost lifelong friends."

Sanderson was hospitalized for nine months at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco.

Veterans Advocates of Ore-Ida serves long-

retired service members such as Sanderson, as well as active-duty soldiers returning from deployment in the Middle East. The idea for the organization came from Ron Verini, a Vietnam veteran who said he was disappointed by how he and his fellow soldiers were treated upon returning from the war.

"There were demonstrations when we got off the plane in San Francisco. Signs that denoted baby killers and jeering and chanting of slogans," said Verini, 69, of Ontario. "Because of the heartache I felt, I felt that many other veterans also had the same feeling."

Verini had heard that other soldiers in the Ontario area did not feel supported by the community, such as Josh Brennan, who died during combat in Afghanistan in 2007.

"So I thought we could put an organization together to send care packages to many other members of the community that were stationed," Verini said. "That would show that the community really loved them and supported them for doing that mission to our country."

The organization has grown and evolved in the five years since it became a nonprofit organization.

"The boxes are not the focal point as they were in the beginning," said Charlene Pelland, co-founder of the organization with Verini and his brother, Doug Dean. "Now local soldiers who went overseas are back and their needs are starting to be made known."

In 2008, the group acquired nonprofit status and rented an office space from Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Ontario.

"In our first month open, we had over 80 veterans come into the office with questions or asking for help," said Pelland, who is a retired nurse and whose father is a World War II veteran. "Before too long, we realized there was a lot of information that our veterans didn't have access to, or didn't know where to go to find it."

Thus, Veteran Advocates of Ore-Ida became a resource center for veterans looking for information about their benefits, employment opportunities, scholarship programs, mental health programming or family assistance.

"Veterans can come in just to have a cup of coffee and chat," Pelland said.

One thing Pelland stressed, however, is that the organization is not there to be a crutch for veterans.

"In that first month, we were handing out money right and left and it was coming out of our own pockets," she said. "One thing we've learned over the period is we're not here to give a handout, we're here to give a hand up."

To accommodate for the growing need from veterans and their families, the advocacy group moved to a larger office space in 2009. The organization also has an event center in Baker City and a packaging building in Nyssa, as they continue to send care packages overseas.

The organization serves not only Malheur County, where there were an estimated 2,438 veterans living in 2012, according to the state of Oregon, but many cities across the Idaho border, as well.

Veteran Advocates also works closely with politicians by encouraging legislation that involves veterans, such as the bill before the Oregon Legislature that would make it mandatory for every county to have a veterans court.

An all-volunteer organization with no federal funding, Veteran Advocates functions on in-kind and monetary donations, as well as small grants. Pelland estimated the group takes in about $50,000 a year.

Each year, starting in November, Vale residents Cheryl Smit, 61, and her husband, Pete, 66, collect monetary and food donations for military families in need during the holidays. They collected $3,500 in two months last year.