Coming online feature: American Legion Department Spotlight
American Legion departments, districts, counties and posts offer programs and services unique to their communities worldwide. Through the history of the nation’s largest veterans service organization, those programs and services have included ambulance services, hospitals, well-baby clinics, fishing derbies, high school rodeo championships, junior college basketball championships, food convoys and much, much more.
The American Legion Media & Communications Commission and the 100th Anniversary Observance Committee want to know those unique stories, profiles of members or youth program alums, great quotations, accomplishments and more.
The American Legion national website will profile at least one Department Spotlight a week this summer. Rather than a historical anecdote or accomplishment from years gone by, the Department Spotlight will focus on a current program, service or figure in the Legion community. Members and friends of The American Legion are encouraged to visit www.legiontown.org to present their stories and upload images that can be used in the Department Spotlight.
Materials delivered through that web platform may be used for a bigger project now underway by the Legion’s 100th Anniversary Observance Committee — Every Department Has a Story. A model of that media product — a placemat-sized printable info-graphic that can be shared in digital or paper formats — was presented to The American Legion National Executive Committee at the Spring Meetings. The Department of Montana, which was the focus of the first model, later distributed the product at its summer convention. See an example of Montana's placemat here. National Headquarters is now working to develop Every Department Has a Story layouts for every American Legion department. The Department Spotlight opportunity will help national staff assemble the layouts.
To upload your post, district or department story and/or image, visit http://www.legiontown.org/share and select the Department Spotlight category. Don’t forget to fulfill your post profile on the Legion Centennial site at www.legion.org/centennial.