Sisters Veterans Group reaches out to community

The Sisters Veterans Group is looking for a few good men and women to fill out its ranks and carry on its community service efforts.

The group is composed of two formal veteran's organizations, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8138 and American Legion Lee Morton Memorial Post 86.

The veterans group's main community service effort is a firewood cutting program designed to provide emergency supplies to the "shut-in" elderly or anyone else so financially strapped that they are forced to choose between heating their homes and buying groceries.

Those who need wood apply through the Family Access Network (FAN) in Sisters, 549-0155.

Carrying on the program is becoming increasingly difficult, according to American Legion Post Commander Phil Chlopek.

"There was quite a few of us when it started," Chlopek said. "Now its gotten down to just a few because we're getting older."

The work of cutting, splitting, stacking and sometimes delivering wood is tough on the aging vets.

"For this year we're going to be in good shape," Chlopek reported. "But we can't keep this up."

In addition to its firewood program, the veterans group stages an annual Memorial Day service at Camp Polk Cemetery. Though Chlopek says the veterans would hold the memorial "if nobody else showed up," the event has increasingly become important to the greater Sisters community as a way to gather and pay tribute to fallen servicemen.

Chlopek emphasizes that the veterans group does not gather to while away the hours recounting "war stories."

"We've been there and done that and we don't want any more of it," he said.

The veterans do share the camaraderie of like-spirited friends and they address contemporary issues such as veterans programs and how to assist local veterans in need.

The group meets at Sisters City Hall on the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m.; meetings last about an hour.

Chlopek and his fellow veterans invite any veteran interested in learning more to come to one of the meetings and ask questions.