Visit Hot Springs raising funds for veterans home
The Visit Hot Springs staff is partnering with Arkansas Veteran Support Services to help fund the remodeling of a home that will be used to temporarily house at-risk or homeless veterans and their families.
The funding project will be a “Vending for Vets Rummage Sale” at 8 a.m. Dec. 21 in Exhibit Hall A of the Hot Springs Convention Center.
“We’re just so excited to be able to do something for our community, and especially for our veterans,” Leysa Lowery, VHS human resources director, said.
According to Visit Hot Springs, the home, located at 300 Glade St., has a good roof and subfloor, but needs some structural and cosmetic improvements and complete electrical and plumbing work.
Steve Arrison, CEO of VHS, “charged me with coming up with
a project we could work on as a group; something all our employees could be involved in,” Lowery said. “I sent an email out first and asked everyone to submit their ideas of what they would like to donate to. I got the top five, then I put that to a vote with our employees and veterans was their first choice.”
She said while searching for a project to benefit veterans, she came across a Facebook post by AVSS Director Wendell Roberts promoting the house’s remodeling.
“I gave him a call and said ‘OK what can we do to help?’ And he said ‘We’re trying to raise funds so we can renovate this house,’ so that’s what we decided to do. We got a committee together and began working. The rummage idea came up, now that’s what we’re doing.”
Lowery said Roberts and Visit Hot Springs veterans attested to Hot Springs’ need for veteran assistance.
“According to Wendell there is a big need for veteran assistance in Hot Springs,” she said. “On our committee we have three veterans and they agreed as well that it is hard for some veterans when they’re returning back into public life, some of them struggle with that return, and that would be a great way to help them get on their feet and get their bearings before they go completely out on their own.”
Lowery said Visit Hot
Springs hopes to raise a minimum of $5,000 at the sale.
“We’re looking more at household items, furniture especially, because that seems to sell well,” Lowery said. “Anything other than clothing because we’re trying to make the most money we can. Basically anything that would be for a house, and we even thought if we had some stuff left over that they could use in the house they are putting together, we could donate it to them.”
Lowery said there is a possibility Visit Hot Springs will follow the project further.
“It depends on how far along they get in that project,” she said. “If they still need help, I have a feeling our employees will want to continue to help. We do a lot of events here in the building that support our military, we’re just very fond of our military here, especially since we have so many of our employees on staff who are former military. So yeah, if that project needs extra help we may look at another project to raise more funds to help them get that going.”
For more information on donating to the rummage sale, call Lowery at 501-321-2027.
For more information on AVSS, call Roberts at 501-2761452.