Honoring our veterans
Costco members find ways to say “thank you” to those who’ve served
Veterans Breakfast Club
For many veterans, telling others about their war
experiences feels too difficult. As a result, they
live alone with painful memories.
To address that issue, in 2008, Todd
DePastino, a Costco member and military
historian, and Dan Cavanaugh—a local businessman whose father served in World War II and
finally spoke to him about his experiences shortly
before he passed away—founded the Veterans
Breakfast Club (VBC; veteransbreakfastclub.
com) in Pittsburgh. The storytelling breakfast
events give veterans of all ages, many of whom
lived through the emotional trauma of battle,
the opportunity to share their stories with each
other and the community. Those who attend are
veterans of every war from WWII to Iraq and
Afghanistan, including a large number who
served in Korea and Vietnam.
So far, the VBC has hosted more than
400 storytelling events throughout western
Pennsylvania, as more veterans, eager to open up
and connect with other veterans, began attending the monthly breakfasts.
“This past year has featured two 101-year-old
World War II veterans, veterans of the Vietnam
Above: Michael
Vernillo, who landed
on Omaha Beach on
D-Day, June 6, 1944,
with the 29th Infantry
Division, and fought
through to Germany,
shares memories with
his friend Beth Yankel
at a 2016 Veterans
Breakfast Club event.
War and a vet who spoke movingly about his
struggle with homelessness after returning from
Iraq,” comments the 52-year-old DePastino, who
is not a veteran but was inspired to help after
meeting Cavanaugh.
In addition to presenting the breakfasts
and monthly and evening events, and recording,
preserving and sharing the stories of local
veterans on its website, the organization—
celebrating its 10-year anniversary—now
features a newsletter, a magazine and a podcast,
and has taken trips to military sites in Europe
and Vietnam.—T. Foster Jones
Diveheart
In the 1980s, when Costco member Jim Elliott’s
oldest daughter, Erin, who is blind, went scuba
diving for the first time, a whole new world of
possibilities opened up to her.
It motivated Elliott, a certified dive master
who began diving in 1976, to found Diveheart
( diveheart.org), a nonprofit based in Illinois and
dedicated to building confidence, independence
and self-esteem in children, adults and veterans
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