Happy New Year 2024
Greetings
from the Town of Veteran Historical Society.
Oh
my goodness, what a year it has been again! 2023 was a great year for accomplishments, our great core group of volunteers
and members made it through another successful year!
Fund raising is our only source of income at this time and thanks
to our Fundraising Chairman, Anita Hesser we continue to thrive. Our bake sale, and Craft Fair in November 2023 was a great
success, earning us more money than ever before! As we get more adept at hosting such an event, we get better at it and continue
to make money to keep our Town of Veteran Historical Society thriving. The Horseheads American Legion on Old Ithaca Rd Horseheads
N.Y. is always a great host for our Craft & Vendor Fair. It was a great Saturday, with lots of baked goods, our quilt
raffle with a beautiful Americana quilt made and donated by our member Anita Hesser and Christmas gifts from our crafters
and vendors. Our volunteer bakers and volunteer helpers came through with flying colors again. We have secured a spot
for our November 2024 Craft & Vendor Fair so if you know anyone who is a crafter or vendor, be sure to have them watch
for our flyers and email ash10@cornell.edu to reserve a space as soon as you see flyers.
In November of 2023 we were proud to debut our Town of Veteran Bicentennial
Book at our Holiday Craft Fair. What a success this book was and a labor of love for our community by the Historical Society.
We were featured on our local TV station and we sold out of our first printing in 4 days! Another printing was placed and
we have sold most of those. Along with contacting Tim Rodabaugh 607-442-1370 or Gloria Campbell 607-331-7333 or emailing veteranny@yahoo.com to order a book, they are also for sale at a local Millport business, The Millport Landing on Crescent St Millport just off
Route 14. The books are $35, if you need them shipped they are an additional $10 per book for USPost shipping.
Our
second ongoing major fund raiser is the Returnable Can and Bottle deposits. Two returnable
Can and Bottle containers are in place for your convenience. One is at Veteran Grange 1108
777 Ridge Road. Our container located at the Can Do return center across from Ridge Road
School is still available to drop off cans although they no longer pay us. They do give us the opportunity to remove our bottles
and take them elsewhere for payment at this time. All you have to do is drop off your bagged returnables in our receptacles
outside of either location and we will do the rest! We will return them for you and all the moneys will be used to better
the Town of Veteran Historical Society. Help us to continue our goals and help the environment at the same time!
We have made great progress in our goals to better The Town of Veteran Historical Society. As most of you know we are
a 501C tax exempt organization. We always need your help. You can donate to the Society, money or artifacts
pertaining to our town and get a tax deduction. Our area is the Town of Veteran, which includes Millport, Pine Valley and
Sullivanville. We would love you to share old pictures, artifacts or stories pertaining to our area and moneyed items
are tax deductible for you the donor.
We continue to work on the historic Veteran Grange #1108 building. We
have an established Building Committee to diligently work towards getting this building in shape so we can have the first
museum dedicated to the residents of the Town of Veteran. Our new 2022 roof is in place and working great! The leaks have
been fixed and we were able to have the back stairwell fixed and a new steel door put on the back entrance. A new hot water
tank was donated and was placed in the building in 2023. We have started to renovate our bathrooms, all because of a generous
donations we received in September of 2023. This donation, from a previous Sullivanville resident, made it possible for us
to gut our old bathrooms and start to make them into one handicapped bathroom which is necessary to open a Museum. Our building
committee has been able to check on all the handicapped appliances and in the Spring of 2024 we should be able to start getting
everything in place. Our motto of "Keeping the Past Present" means more to us now than ever! Again this takes many
hours of fundraising to accomplish, so again I implore any member or friend that has grant experience to give us a shout and
help us to bring this beautiful building back to glory so it can be opened to our community. So far we have accomplished everything
through fund raising but we need grants. Please help us if you have any experience in grants.
We welcome all members
to join us and help us with ideas for the Society, with grant writing, or ideas for fund raising, please let us know about
them. We always have ongoing projects we are working on since we now have a building and are trying to make it into
a public building. Please share your expertise so we can continue to "Keep the Past Present". We will have old fashioned
work bees, more fund raisers and many opportunities to get the Town of Veteran community involved. We hope you will join us!
A huge thank you goes out to the Veteran Grange #1108, whose members will still use the building to hold Grange meetings and
Grange fund raisers.
Our ongoing Cemetery Projects are doing great. Our cemeteries, not recognized by
the town look fantastic as we have hired someone to mow and weed eat Parsons, Crandall, Turner and Greene Bentley so we can
continue to honor our past residents and honor our military. Keeping the abandoned cemeteries looking their best is an expense
that we feel is necessary. Watch for fund raisers throughout the year to help defray the cost of this expense. There
are many cemeteries in the Town of Veteran, many are private and on private property. We have had to pick and chose which
we can maintain due to money constraints but we take care of what we can to honor our Community.
You may now be a
life member or a family life member for a fee of $100 for an individual or $150 per couple/family under one roof. You may
still be a regular member for just $10 per year. Also available now are Gift Memberships, if you would like to give a gift
of membership to a friend or loved one please contact the Society. This new Life Member policy will help to eliminate mailing
and will save the TOVHS money in reminder mailings. Please be sure to update your information with us, so we can keep you
informed as to our activities. We would love to have new members or our regular members become life partners in our Society.
Dues are due by December of each year. Our May, July and September meetings are held on the 3rd Thursday
at the Veteran Grange 777 Ridge Rd Horseheads, N.Y. The January, March and November meetings are held on the 3rd
Thursday at the Veteran Town Hall on Route 14 in Millport, N.Y. Remember we depend on members to help with our fund
raising, planning, brainstorming, and volunteering and to attend our meetings. Please put the 3rd Thursday
of January, March, May, July, September and November on your calendars and join us in helping to "Keep the Past Present"
It is now more important than ever to volunteer, we will have many opportunities now that we are the proud owners of the historic
Veteran Grange 1108 building.
Please check our website for updated meeting minutes and for upcoming events. www.townofveteranhistoricalsociety.com , and check out our Face Book page. Become a member today! It is only $10 per year due by December of each year or
now become a new life member. Just email us at veteranny@yahoo.com or if you have any questions please write us at Town of Veteran Historical Society 777 Ridge Rd Horseheads NY 14845 or feel
free to call me at 607-739-0753.
Have a great 2024!
Respectfully,
Gloria Campbell/President
