Upcoming Bend town hall to address veterans’ issues
The MyVA Cascadia Board will hold a public town hall meeting on Monday, May 9 in Bend at the Hitchcock Auditorium of Central Oregon Community College from 6-8 p.m. for veterans, their families, and community leaders to brainstorm new strategies to existing veteran issues.
Unlike many veteran forums, this event will focus on strategizing solutions and not address individual Veteran case issues. Veterans with individual issues will be able to address those issues with VA and other advocates before the town hall event.
In addition, VA leadership will be in attendance, including VA Portland Health Care System Acting Director Dr. Todd Burnett, Veterans Benefits Administration Portland Regional Office Acting Deputy Director Kevin Kalama, and Willamette National Cemetery Director George Allen.
“What we’re really doing is holding a work session during these forums,” MyVA Cascadia Co-Chair Tom Mann explained. “Our goal is to identify gaps in services and resources and then determine how best to solve them, as well as determine who else we need to invite to the table as partners.”.
MyVA Cascadia plans to hold regular public town hall meetings throughout the VA Portland Health Care System catchment area, which includes 26 counties across Southwest Washington, the Portland Metro area, the coast from Astoria to Newport, south to Corvallis/Philomath, and east to Central Oregon.
The MyVA Cascadia Board is a 21-member board dedicated to helping facilitate solutions to the myriad of Veteran and family issues facing communities throughout the VAPORHCS catchment area.
The MyVA Cascadia Board was formed in late 2015 based on the Veterans Affairs MyVA Community model outlined in its MyVA Transformation Plan but it is not an official VA organization.
For further information about MyVA Communities, please visit http://www.va.gov/nace/ .
To learn more about MyVA Cascadia, please visit: https://myvacascadia.com/
Questions and suggestions can be submitted via myvacascadia@yahoo.com or mailed to MyVA Cascadia, PO Box 3576 Salem, OR 97302.
