Area heroes enjoy a meal prior to Veteran's Day

LEE COUNTY – The Ivor Fowler Center in Montrose was full Monday night as Lee County Veteran’s Affairs brought the county’s veterans together for a meal prior to Tuesday’s federal holiday.
Nikki Sugars, the Lee County Veteran’s Affairs administrator, said the dinner is just a social time to bring people together in a like-minded space and share a meal.
“This is the second year we’ve done this. Last year we did it with pork loins,” Sugars said. “This year we thought weren’t maximizing what we could do and I saw another (veteran’s service office) in another county giving away the pork loins to veterans to take home and I thought what better time than now to do that, so we’re doing that this year.”
As each veteran left the dinner, they were given a bag with information and pork loin to take home.
The pork was donated, along with all the decorations for the dinners by the Deb and Jeff Hanson Foundation.
“That’s an amazing foundation,” Sugars said. “Their son was a military member and lost his life in service. They donate the pork loins and all the decorations for the dinners throughout the State of Iowa.”
Sugars has been in her position for about four years and said the amount of money being brought into the county in the way of direct benefits and spousal benefits, including healthcare, has gone from $600,000 a month to more than $1.3 million a month.
That is a benefit for roughly 680 veterans according to a national report provided to the county based on active claims.

She said the county has another 1,625 veterans she would like to touch base with. She said that number can be skewed based on National Guard figures. Veterans who don’t have an active duty deployment don’t qualify as a veteran for benefits so she said those numbers are fluid. The mobility of veterans in and out of the county and death also makes the numbers fluctuate, but in simple math terms, her office would still like to make contact with about 75 percent of the veterans in the county.
“We’re not done by any means. We’ve got a long way to go and our goal is to reach out to every veteran and make sure they know we’re here for them,” she said.
“We’re working on all kinds of things right now. We’re currently offering VTS, (Veteran Tech Support), which is a program to help veterans navigate computer IT issues with all the information now computer based,” she said.
She said the Iowa Food Bank is also giving shelf stable food boxes for veterans and those will be distributed shortly. She said Joshua Weeks, the county’s assistant affairs administrator, has been invaluable in helping shore up the office’s responsibilities.
“Even if you think you're fine or have all the benefits you are eligible for, come check with us,” she said.
Weeks and Sugars are both accredited to file claims nationally so they can take a deeper dive into benefits currently being paid out and any additional benefits that may still be untapped.
She said the dinners for veterans will continue annually to provide another outlet for veterans to get together.
“These are important for bringing veterans out into the community. A lot of veterans will self-isolate and this gets them together with people of familiar background and that helps them, I think," she said.
"It also helps them to get to know us a little better so they aren’t as concerned about coming into our office."