Contacting active servicemen and women in the armed forces may become easier than ever for their friends and family in the Eugene area this year, if all goes as planned for the Veterans and Family Student Association.
The VFSA is working with the ASUO to build a communications center in its office in the EMU by the end of the year. It’s just one of many projects the group has planned. Other projects include a second year of the successful fundraising event “Telling,” as well as smaller fundraisers during homecoming and throughout the school year.
The VFSA hopes its communications center will provide a reliable, secure place for family members and friends of deployed servicemen and women to communicate with them while they are overseas.
“People can connect to the Internet to try and talk to them, but they don’t always have everything they need, like a reliable high-speed connection, a webcam, and microphones,” VFSA director Jason Alves said.
Founded in 2005, the VFSA is a student group created to help ease returning veterans through the transition to everyday life as a student at the University.
“It’s first and foremost a community. A lot of vets come back to school and have a hard time readjusting, so we offer that community,” said Alves, who served four years in the Navy and was a student at Lane Community College before transferring to the University.
The VFSA began in 2005 as the Veteran’s Club. “It was originally just four or five guys that would get together and talk about vets’ issues,” Alves said. In 2007 the Vets Club became the VFSA, an official student group.
The group now has more than 100 members. “We have 25 to 30 very active members – people who are there on a regular basis,” Alves said. “There are many more who stop by once a week, or just every now and then.”
Alves became temporary director of the VFSA in the spring of 2008 when the first director, and Marine Shane Addis, was deployed to Iraq. At the time, Alves was serving as the Non-traditional Student and Veterans Advocate in the ASUO. He was eventually elected to full-time director of the group for the 2008-09 school year.
The group also plans to host its witness theater fundraiser, “Telling,” again this year. The event, which blended theatrics and testimony, drew more than 900 people during its three-day run in February.
The VFSA will also be hosting a hot dog eating contest at homecoming, and it is collaborating with the Non-Traditional Student Union on another fundraiser later this year.
The group’s reach extends into the classroom as well. The VFSA collaborated with the Substance Abuse Prevention Program to create the Veterans and Family Issues course. The two-credit seminar is taught by adjunct professor Lucy Zammarelli. According to the SAPP Web site, the course is aimed at “students interested in human service vocations, community service workers, veterans and their families, as well as those just interested in knowing more about veteran’s issues.” The course looks at all the aspects of reintegrating veterans into their community following their service. “We’re helping streamline the course,” Alves said.
The VFSA is also working with state officials to make it easier for veterans to get residency status in the school system.
[email protected]