ARMED FORCES

ARMED FORCES

VETERANS

AMVETS to remodel

STRUTHERS

The Home Depot Foundation, in conjunction with Home Depot Stores of Boardman, Austintown, Niles and Salem, is helping AMVETS Post 44 Career Center, 305 Elm St., Struthers, with a grant to remodel its building and bring it up to standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act and local codes.

AMVETS Post 44 recently purchased the former Struthers Tabernacle Baptist Church to remodel into a career center for veterans and current military personnel. The career center provides online training in more than 5,000 courses at no cost to veterans or military personnel.

Local Home Depot stores are providing volunteer labor in conjunction with Celebration of Service, a Home Depot Foundation program that runs through Veterans Day, Nov. 11. An estimated 87 Home Depot volunteers will be at AMVETS Post 44 on Tuesday painting, replacing doors, building a handicap ramp and landscaping the front of the building.

Glidden Paint donated the paint and supplies; Pavestone will provide materials and labor to build block walls as part of the landscaping; and Molnar’s Concessions is setting up a tent with tables and chairs to help feed the volunteers. For more information, call John P. “JP” Brown III at 330-518-5536.

Rehab center opens

CLEVELAND

The Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s new 28,000-square-foot Blind Rehabilitation Center is open for patients.

It is a referral center for veterans living in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky. The 15-bed inpatient center supports blind and low-vision veterans and active-duty service members in regaining their independence and quality of life to enable their successful integration into family and community life.

The average length of stay for patients is six weeks, said Ellen Papadimoulis, chief of the rehabilitation center.

Bingo event planned

HERMITAGE, PA.

Whispering Oaks retirement community, 260 S. Buhl Farm Drive, is having a bingo event in support of the Outward Bound for Veterans program from 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 22.

To learn more about this event and how to get involved, call Whispering Oaks at 724-347-3050. Donations also can be made online at www.holidaytouch.com/outwardbound.

The Outward Bound for Veterans program provides learning expeditions to encourage healing and rebuild confidence of veterans struggling to readjust to civilian life. The cost for one veteran to complete an Outward Bound course is $2,000, and there is a waiting list of more than 500 veterans.

Whispering Oaks is one of Holiday Retirement’s more than 300 independent retirement living communities in the U.S. and Canada. Holiday Retirement will match every dollar donated.

Brown seeks action

WASHINGTON, D.C.

In the wake of a new lawsuit aimed at 13 banks that have purportedly charged veterans illegal fees to refinance their home loans, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has called for action from the Department of Justice and the Department of Veteran Affairs.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Brown, who chairs the Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, called on the agencies to release full information on any internal investigations and responses to the suit.

Ohio is home to 930,000 military veterans and has the eighth-highest rate of home foreclosures this year, Brown said.

BASIC TRAINING GRADS

Navy: Seaman Apprentice Preston P. Sweet (Laurel High School, New Castle, Pa., ’11), son of Sandra R. and Jon P. Sweet of New Castle.

Items of note for the Armed Forces Digest can be sent to The Vindicator, Regional Desk, P.O. Box 780, Youngstown 44501-0780, or emailed to alcorn@vindy.com