Nebraska VFW adjusts to locations closing, finds alternatives

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - In July, multiple VFW posts closed in the metro area. 6 News spoke with representatives of the organization to get a pulse on how posts are doing now.

The commander of the Nebraska VFW says posts are alive and well. Not an end of an era, it’s a change of venue, he says.

“Just because a building goes away, don’t mean a post goes away,” said Joe Smith, commander of the Nebraska VFW. “My post lost our building 15 years ago, and we’re still active and thriving.”

“In my post’s case, we meet at a church. There’s posts that meet in libraries. There’s posts that meet in community centers.”

Another casualty of COVID is the physical locations of some posts, with the overhead costs just too high to maintain. In Douglas, Sarpy and Cass counties, there are 15 active posts but only five have their own building.

“I believe we ended last year with a little over 13,000 members in the state of Nebraska.”

Post 10727 is one in Bellevue with its own building.

“We’re a very active post and a pretty good size membership of over 500 members,” said Bill Robinson, the former commander of Post 107267. “We work with a lot of agencies in the Bellevue area to support primarily veterans’ activities and affairs and the individual veterans themselves.”

Bill says the VFW is important for multiple reasons.

“The VFW provides access and gateways to many of the different programs.”

Another reason is comradery.

“There’s that shared experience. And it’s a place you can maybe talk about things you wouldn’t normally talk about in a general population.”

And so while the cost to maintain the physical location for some posts is a challenge, they say the programming and benefits aren’t going away anytime soon.

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