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Joseph Belanger
Vice Commanders Report
Districts 2 and 10
I hope you are all reading this in happiness and good health.
So it’s that time again when the cold air comes rushing in creating some unreal weather all over our great state of New York. It’s been an amazing time with a lot of improvement!
Unfortunately, I have some bad news to report our second district commander Jesse Figueroa has been in a vehicle accident and is unable to walk. Please keep him in your prayers!
A lot has been going on. I was honored to be invited to Nassau and Suffolk’s department visitation dinners. Nassau county hosted their dinner at Edwin Welch, Jr post-1132. The dinner for Suffolk county was held at Joseph Loffler post-1006. The visitations are always an amazing time no matter where it is!
Our second district commander Jesse Figueroa was able to attend a few events. In November 2022, the 2nd District meeting was attended located at the Gold Star Post on Staten Island. Also, he was in attendance for November 2022, Veterans Day Ceremony at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn county.
Our leading candidate for department commander, Peter DeAngelo has also attended the following events. On October 29, there was held a Halloween fundraiser for his campaign, was very successful. It was held at his squadron, 1636 post.
On Thanksgiving day, Joe Hall held an open house for veterans in the community at the Michael A Rawley American Legion Post 1636 in Brooklyn. They served about 500 meals at the post and delivered about 500 meals to people who could not make it to the location. That’s a thousand meals served, how amazing is that!
On December 10 Joe Hall and peter DeAngelo held their annual toys for tots Christmas party at squadron post-1636. They have raised $900 in cash and 20 boxes of toys. It’s nice to hear all those children had a good holiday.
We have a new training area on sonsofthelegionli.com. You will be able to review step-by-step videos and text on a few things we should all know about. All the instruction is done by industry professionals. The training section includes the setting up and posting process of all social media accounts. Also included is how to get the press kit, sponsorships, and a crash course on PR. I encourage you again to visit the site and take a look. That address is sonsofthelegionli.com
Our membership in the second district is hovering about at 75%. The 10th district is around 71 percent. We should always be aware of these numbers and teach our people how to read them. Reports are what help us to see where we are and where we need to go. We can’t improve without knowing our metrics.
Membership is something that should be on all our minds as we move forward this year. It should not only be on our minds but in our mouths so to speak. If we don’t talk to our communities we starve our organization of potential membership! Please take the time to review the reports page on the site sonsofthelegionli.com.
Right now Suffolk County is working on a few new squadrons West Islip, Smithtown, and the Queen’s county American Legion. Sometime in the spring, I will be arranging a training class to go over reports, social media, public relations, networking, and more. This is part of my recommitment to connecting our organization and improvement efforts.
Finally, I want to touch on consolidated reports. Our reports recorded equates to a dollar amount. We donate millions including what our consolidated reports convey. We need to get the reports in or our good work will go unnoticed. So I leave you to your mid-winter activities with the hopes you will leave enriched and ready to communicate mid-winter to your local posts, counties, ext.
