Ohio Post 211 donates $10,000 to local food pantry and has provided $36,000 to various other areas of need in its community.
The cities of Avon Lake and Avon, Ohio, are both relatively affluent, with median household incomes well above the state and national average. But within those communities is a need, one that is helped being met by American Legion Post 211 in Avon Lake.
The post recently made a $10,000 donation to Community Resources Center, whose efforts to address poverty in the area includes operating a monthly food pantry that assists approximately 500 area residents.
Post Commander Len Lieber said the food pantry assists what he calls “the invisible poor in an affluent community. A number of them are, in some way, attached to the military, possibly veterans. Widows of veterans. All those folks who live quietly, who never complain, and are the salt of the earth.
“We are obligated, both emotionally and as a military organization, to make sure that these people do not go hungry. It is an ethical and moral sin for anyone giving themselves in defense of this country to go without ample food. We do whatever we can.”
Assisting the food pantry’s efforts has a wide-reaching effect. “In these (assisted) families are children, and we want children to be properly fed,” Lieber said. “If they are not, their brains won’t be properly nourished, and they won’t be able to learn properly. They won’t be able to contribute later on as a productive adult.
“Beyond that, if there are children that are not properly fed, with my background in the mental health and child abuse business for 50 years, I know that they will run into trouble socially … because the fact their brain was not nourished properly.”
In addition to the donation, Post 211 also is addressing local food insecurity through the creation of a meals for veterans program. Utilizing its large kitchen, anyone connected to the military, whether a member of the post or not, can receive a free meal delivered to his or her home.
“We have volunteers that will (deliver the meal),” Lieber said. “And another program we have is that a military person or veteran, especially if they are a member of our post, and they can’t get to the store or get to the post for a meal, they will get a couple of meals once a week for them and a partner. We just won’t sit back and let somebody go hungry.”
Post 211’s generosity has gone beyond its recent donation. Lieber said $36,000 also has been donated throughout the community to areas such as scholarships, sponsorship of a Boy Scout Troop, special camps for disabled adults and children, and assisting with the construction of the Lorrain County Gold Star Families Memorial Monument in Elyria, Ohio. The monument will be dedicated this weekend; Post 211’s honor guard, of which Lieber is a member, will be in attendance at the ceremony.
“This is something that has been in the works for a while, and we have made a substantial financial donation to that,” Lieber said. “I grew up during World War II in Indiana in a small town, and I remember all the Gold Star emblems hanging in windows in my town. It’s always stayed with me, and I knew families who lost warriors in World War II.”
Post 211 also is undergoing a substantial renovation that Lieber says “is developing a real destination. It’s going to be something special.
“The post really has undergone a metamorphosis, which every aspect of the Legion Family pulling in the same direction. We’ve had our open pockets because of our incredibly supportive members.”
- Community