Greenville VFW Post 7262 Veterans Digital Library attracts attention at VFW National Convention
KANSAS CITY, MO. – The Greenville Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 7262 Veterans Digital Library is parked inside the Kansas City Convention Center for the 123rd VFW National Convention.
Every year, thousands of VFW and Auxiliary delegates gather to represent the organization’s total membership of more than 1.5 million at the weeklong VFW National Convention. While there, the mission is to approve new national priorities to guide the organization as they lobby Congress on issues important to the nation’s veterans, service members and their families.
Greenville VFW’s mission of becoming the first of its kind, state of the art Veterans digital memorial has become reality.
The organization purchased a vehicle and created a mobile studio to cover events, training and conventions. The Digital Library is in its sixth year of digitizing participating veterans’ oral histories, pictures and other sources of primary material.
Greenville class of 1984 alum, Dennis Young drove the Digital Library the nine hour trip to Kansas City where every fourth year the VFW National Convention is held in the heart of America.
“We were here four years ago and we brought our mobile unit this time,” said Mike Maloney, also a 1984 Greenville graduate and Vice Chairman of the Veterans Memorial Park and Digital Library. “Dennis Young has done a fantastic job setting this all up and getting it done here in Kansas City.”
“Our goal here is to interview at least one person from every state,” continued Maloney. “It is possible here because every state is represented. There are also other departments here from Asia and Europe so we are going to try and get all the departments as well. Our goal to get all 50 states hooked into this. We have already had a lot of traffic, we have already interviewed Colleen Wiley VFW Department of Ohio Senior Vice Commander and that went very well.”
The Greenville VFW Mobile Digital Library is the only one of its kind in the country and comes at a cost crisscrossing America.
“Our mission is preserving the history of our veterans,” Maloney stated. “Our main fund raising is our annual talent show that we will be holding this year at the Brookville VFW. We have had seven talent shows supported by sponsors. We also have a year around drawing.”
“We always look for sponsors,” added Maloney. “We have been pretty successful and the good news is we don’t spend a whole lot of money, we try to be as frugal as we can.”
Donations to the Digital Library can be made by using the Venom App at vfwtvohio.
“Our ultimate goal is to develop a Veterans cable channel,” Maloney said. “There are 1,700 cable channels and not one of them is dedicated to Veterans information, news and such things.”
The Digital Library Mobile Unit can be seen parked in front of Greenville VFW Post 7262 on Ohio Street when not traveling the country.
“We hope to possibly have the unit at the Great Darke County Fair a day or two when Kenton Stacy comes back home for a visit,” Maloney said.
