{"id":5434,"date":"2018-05-04T09:50:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T13:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5434"},"modified":"2025-08-23T16:36:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:36:31","slug":"american-legion-sees-a-drop-in-membership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2018\/05\/04\/american-legion-sees-a-drop-in-membership\/","title":{"rendered":"American Legion Sees a Drop in Membership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Veteran Holidays.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Towns decorated with American Flags on light posts.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Graves of resting military decorated with American flags.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>These are just some things the American Legion does for local communities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Members of the American Legion are seeing interest in the local community decline in recent years.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The legion is a nonprofit group run by military veterans.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Rodney (Rod) Collins, a 12-year member and financial officer of Legion Post 118 in Mars Hill, said, \u201cI\u2019ll bet 75 percent of our members are 80 or older.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>But this town has been very supportive.\u201d\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Post 118 was chartered in 1922.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The original building burned to the ground in the late 1940s.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The current building was built in the 1950s.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Members of Post 118 use fundraisers to pay for its donations to charities such as Angel Flight.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Angel Flight helps cover costs for emergency flights to hospitals.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Money also goes into scholarships and funeral honors for families of veterans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>The Legion raises money selling raffle tickets and hosting Saturday night bingo.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Most funds raised go to keeping the lights on and the heat running.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Other areas of donation come by hosting meals.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Bingo is their longest running fundraiser to date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>With few members, keeping things running can be a challenge.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Rene Wells, commander of Post 118, knows this.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Since all members are military veterans, they tend to butt heads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u201cYou have to play to everyone\u2019s strengths,\u201d Wells said.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The job is hard but rewarding.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe most rewarding thing is to reach out and help so many people,\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Post 118 meets on the first Thursday of every month at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Veteran Holidays.\u00a0 Towns decorated with American Flags on light posts.\u00a0 Graves of resting military decorated with American flags.\u00a0 These are just some things the American Legion does for local communities. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Members of the American Legion are seeing interest in the local community decline in recent years.\u00a0 The legion is a nonprofit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":254,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8631,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434\/revisions\/8631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}