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Disabled
American Veterans
Making A Difference
Susan Piazza, Commander, DAV
(03/06/07)
To those who do not know us,
I would like to introduce our organization. The Disabled
American Veterans is a nonprofit organization. Formed in
1920, chartered in 1932, its
national headquarters is based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.
We speak for over two million disabled veterans. Our
mission, our mandate, is very specific; we have one
single purpose: building better lives for our nation’s
disabled veterans, their families, and survivors.
We fulfill our mandate in several ways, mainly by
offering help with disability compensation, VA pensions,
death benefits, VA medical care, and so much more. A
large focus of our organization is to tackle legislative
issues essential to veterans and expedite veteran’s
claims.
Our local chapter, Chapter 2 Queen City, is based out of
Lawrence, but meets in Methuen at the VFW on River
Street. (No place to meet in Lawrence, but we will
address that issue at another time.) Our meetings are
held on the first Thursday of the month, April through
October, inclusive, at 6 p.m. March and November, we meet
at 4 p.m.
Chapter 2 assists the veterans’ communities with
various matters. We help with medical transportation,
provide food for our homebound members, assist with the
claims process (new or reopening a prior claim), assist
with procuring medals (lost) or helping those who might
be eligible for newly offered medals. Through our
meetings, we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries or other
special events important to our comrades.
We provide money to hospitalized veterans for bingo
games, ice cream socials, gift certificates for canteens,
etc. We support our brother and sister veteran
organizations however we can. We attend their parades as
well as city parades and local events (think Festival of
Trees, dedication ceremonies and, of course, memorial
ceremonies).
As we begin this year’s new meeting schedule on
March 1st, we will be focusing even more on local needs.
We will continue to support our comrades at the VA
facilities in Bedford, Chelsea, Jamaica Plains, and West
Roxbury. We wish to expand our contact and will be
focusing more on nursing homes in the local area, and on
those in rehab that may not have as much contact as they
would like.
We always look forward to meeting new faces. Our meetings
are open to the public. We too are always looking for a
few good people to join with us. If you have any
questions or concerns, please contact us at our automated
answering machine at 978-685-0046.
We plan to use this monthly column to focus on different
aspects important to the veterans’ community in
general, and issues that disabled veterans and their
families in particular may find interesting and/or
important.
End of life issues are of great concern to our members
and their spouses, especially considering every day over
one thousand World War II veterans die. Next month we
shall focus on these concerns.
Susan Piazza is the first female commander of
the DAV in 75 years, and its current commander. She has
been involved with the DAV over twenty five (25) years.
She is also Past Commander of the American Legion Post
417, Methuen.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The March 2007 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 12,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
Boxford, Amesbury,
Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury, MERRIMACK, Hampton &
Salisbury Beach, and Lowell.
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