Arkansas post recruits and retains through community awareness

Membership in the Charles E. Brown American Legion Post 54 in De Queen, Ark., has increased from three to 40 in the last few years.

Post Commander Jessie Horton credits recruitment success by inviting veterans in the community to post events, letting them help out and have the opportunity to “get to know who we are. That’s how we’ve started getting a lot of our membership is by letting them see us out in the community. Then the veteran is invited to a post meeting. Once we get them in (to the post), we try to retain them.”

Horton helps retain members by providing light refreshments at the beginning of every meeting to encourage socialization. “I don’t try to hurry them up into the meeting,” she said. And she doesn’t hurry them out the door following the meeting.
“I think that’s what has kept a lot of them at the post.”