Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Assistance Committee
 of the Frederick County Veterans Association
will become the Frederick County Veterans Chapter of the new nonprofit Maj. Gen. Boyd M. Cook Memorial Foundation,

Veterans group prepares to expand
Originally published May 20, 2008


By Justin M. Palk
News-Post Staff
 

A year-old Frederick County group is looking to make its efforts to help veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars a model for the state.

By the end of the week, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Assistance Committee of the Frederick County Veterans Association will become an independent organization, Bran Thompson, the committee's co-chair, said.

The committee will become the Frederick County Veterans Chapter of the new nonprofit Maj. Gen. Boyd M. Cook Memorial Foundation, Thompson said. The FCVA, an organization of mostly Vietnam War-era veterans, will retain its own identity.

Cook, who died in February, co-founded the committee with Thompson.

In the year since its founding, the group has distributed more than $20,000 in aid to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Thompson said.

The focus was originally on the National Guard and Reserves, but in its new incarnation, the foundation will aim to help all service members, he said.

The committee has helped provide such services as child care, repairing gutters on a home owned by a deployed service member and funding for a wounded service member in Texas to return home to Frederick County over the holidays, according to the group's most recent newsletter.

Service members in other parts of the state have similar needs and are falling through the cracks, which is why the committee wants to expand, Thompson said.

There is already some interest in starting a second chapter in Washington County, said John Wilcox Jr., a member of the executive board.

Thompson said that in June, he will present a proposal for creating chapters in other counties to the 2008 Maryland AMVETS convention in Hagerstown.