Franklin County officials are using a new outreach effort to link more veterans to the benefits and services to which they're entitled. Mike Foley reports.
The Franklin County Veterans Service Commission has a new mobile office vehicle to reach out to veterans. Executive Director Buck Bramlish says the van had a successful debut at the county fair.
“It was by the Lima Company memorial and a lot of military kind of congregated around there. I don’t have the exact numbers, I’d say probably a couple hundred throughout the week. Really the bottom line is we offer two things – financial support to Franklin County veterans and then service support filing benefits for any veteran in Ohio. But we want to get the message out. That’s why marketing to the nursing homes, maybe some of our nongovernmental veteran organizations, our partner organizations…they all do such a good job, if we could work together and reach those veterans in the corners of Franklin County that maybe aren’t as accessible to us.”
The wheelchair-accessible van has two fully-equipped offices to quickly process the information and necessary forms. Franklin County Commissioner Paula Brooks says it will help reach the county’s veterans now and in the future.
“Hundreds at least, and if you just read the obituaries, every single day you see those flags by a name and those are our veterans. My father-in-law just died last year. He was both World War II and Korean veteran, so we’re losing people like that on a daily basis. We’re going to see many more here in central Ohio because we have a huge number of veterans because we have a patriotic community. We also have a very large guard and reserve, and we have the DSCC. There are just many facilities here that cause us to be a major veterans center.”
Bramlish says 5,600 veterans visited the VSC last year and about 1,400 came by in the last three months. Officials hope to reach more veterans with this mobile office vehicle by attending community events and interested nursing home facilities around the county.
