10th District Commander’s February 2025 Report

It’s hard to believe we are midway through the 2024-2025 Legion year!

Thank you to everyone who made it out to Osseo for our 10th District Christmas Rally. Special thanks to the post for donating the hall rental and appetizer-style spread. We hosted deputies and staff from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office for an informative presentation from their Community Outreach and Public Affairs (COPA) department as well as their Criminal Intelligence Division (CID). I’ve long thought veterans have a role in ensuring public safety by giving them our support.

I attended the Christmas party at Ogilvie Post 640, with Tess and Al Davis, for a huge holiday potluck. As I listened to their post meeting and the donations they made that night, I was reminded how important an American Legion post is, especially in a small community.

Shout out to all the posts that offered free Thanksgiving or Christmas meals. For my day job, I’m an assistant county veterans service officer focusing on homeless and justice-involved veterans. I heard from veterans I’m helping that they went to American Legion posts for a hot meal. You embody our American Legion values with these actions. What you do really matters.

Have you seen our new department legislative grassroots action page? You can quickly and easily send an email to relevant state elected officials by clicking on any of the campaigns on the website. Visit https://mnlegion.org/action/.

We had a great time and got a lot of work done at the 10th District Mid-Winter Conference at Anoka Jan. 11. Thank you to everyone who attended!

For anyone who has been wondering about the 10th District Family testimonial, we discovered ours was on the same date as Department Commander Carl Moon’s. We have begun to look for a different date. We are still hoping it will work out to have the event in Milaca.

We are planning another VA S.A.V.E. training in March, hopefully at the Wayzata post. We are supporting the national Be the One mission by training our members how to ask the most important question of all (are you thinking about suicide?), how to react to a suicidal crisis and how to use the 988 national suicide crisis line to get help.

Thank you for the great support for my commander’s project, Every Third Saturday. They reported at midwinter that our posts have raised more than $13,000 so far, which is well over halfway to our goal of $20,000 for the year.

Have you seen our new district website? It is at mnmighty10thdistrict.org. Thank you to Jennifer Cole of Legion Social for her talents!

As your Department Legislative Committee chairwoman, I’ve gotten very busy making plans for Washington Conference in late February. I’ve been at the Minnesota Capitol Complex, giving an overview presentation of the Commander’s Task Force priorities and testifying in the taxes committee for the bill which would exempt all CTF buildings from property taxes. A change to the Minnesota tax code would help us continue our physical presence in communities across this state.

In service.