For almost a year, Louisiana Post 350 has twice a month hosted breakfast sessions for area veterans to share conversations and camaraderie.
Around the spring of 2024, a group of Legionnaires from Thomas J. Hanly Jr. American Legion Post 350 in Metairie, La., were attending the department’s 2nd District Conference. There, they heard about another post regularly opening up its doors for coffee and donuts to provide its members with a chance to socialize and perhaps works through any issues they may have been facing.
Those same Legionnaires wrote down what they heard and took it back to Post 350’s membership. And a few months later, the post began its own coffee and donuts sessions. Twice a month for two hours, veterans in the community are invited to the post to share stories, reflect on their own service and find camaraderie among peers.
Post 350 Commander Dean Arnett, who attended the 2nd District Conference, said the sessions also fall in line with The American Legion’s Be the One veteran suicide prevention program.
“Our real impetus is conversation and camaraderie,” said Arnett, who also serves as the 2nd District historian and Media & Communications representative. “To be there. To be the one in case somebody just needs to go sit with other people like them. That’s really why we started it. That’s why we’re trying to grow it.”
Arnett was at the 2nd District Conference with current 2nd District Commander, Post 350 First Vice Commander and Past Post Commander Joseph Stephany; and also 2nd District Committeeman and Post 350 Service Officer John Meyers. He said both Meyers and Stephany looked at each other and then wrote the idea down on paper when they first heard it.
“With Joe and John really leading the charge, that’s when we said we were going to do it,” Arnett said, noting the first event took place last September. “It’s really just two hours of coffee and donuts. People sit around and enjoy themselves. Camaraderie and conversation.
“It’s family friendly. We have kids there. I take my grandson fairly often. My alternate sergeant-at-arms brings her puppy dog with her every time.”
Arnett has an email list of fellow Louisiana post commanders that he sends reminders to about the coffee and donuts sessions. “A couple of other posts in our district, they send more people (to the sessions) than our own post members,” he said. “Other posts bring donuts, like our friends at Post 397 (in New Orleans), they always bring donuts. We buy two dozen, and by the time everybody’s there, there’s three, four, five dozen donuts.”
Arnett said members like Post 350 Sergeant-at-Arms Radine Bultman help make the program a success. “She’s off on Fridays, and she’s one of our key volunteers,” he said. “She’s there to set up and clean up and help make coffee and just make sure everything moves along smoothly.”
Now, Post 350 is trying to expand the program. Arnett said during this year’s department convention he heard about a program started by American Legion Post 69 Commander Stephanie Hanks in Lafayette that allows veterans and first responders to meet regularly.
Arnett took the idea back to his post’s executive committee, which gave the OK to begin inviting first responders in the area to attend the sessions. “We’re in the process of trying to get the word out to the local sheriff’s office, to the local police,” he said. “Reaching out to the Fraternal Order of Police, the unions in both of our major parishes. The firefighters’ union in Jefferson Parish, they meet at the post, so we’ve reached out to them. We’re really just starting that part of the effort.
“It’s a fun morning, and it’s an opportunity for veterans – and now first responders – to just come and take a load off. Talk to other people that are like you and have seen and done things that we all know we’ve done.”
Arnett said during a recent session he spoke about being unsure if the program had made an impact yet. He got a resounding “yes” from one of the post’s officers who has received a cancer diagnosis and is unable to work.
“He pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, you errantly said that you haven’t helped anybody. I’m here to tell you that after my diagnosis … I was heading to a bad place. The demons were creeping in,’” Arnett said. “And that was right when he started this. And he said, ‘This has helped me immensely: Knowing those two days a month I have someplace to go.’
“It’s the same for me. I love being there, being around folks. And just the opportunity for fellowship and camaraderie and conversation is a phenomenal gift.”
- Be the One