Springfield VFW post donates $25,000 to local charities and nonprofits

It’s important to give to organizations that help community, VFW post commander says.
Members from the VFW Post 1031, Rick Boop, post commander, left, and Bobby Crabtree, senior vice commander, right, presented Ryan Ray, from the Springfield Salvation Army with a $5,000 check Thursday. The Salvation Army was just one of the local charities the VFW helped this week that totalled $25,000. BILL LACKEY/STAFF

Credit: Bill Lackey

Credit: Bill Lackey

Members from the VFW Post 1031, Rick Boop, post commander, left, and Bobby Crabtree, senior vice commander, right, presented Ryan Ray, from the Springfield Salvation Army with a $5,000 check Thursday. The Salvation Army was just one of the local charities the VFW helped this week that totalled $25,000. BILL LACKEY/STAFF

A local VFW post donated $5,000 on Thursday to the Salvation Army as part of a series of donations by the veteran’s group this week to various area charities and nonprofits that totaled at $25,000.

The money came from the Ohio Charities Fund and was distributed out by VFW Post 1031 in Springfield. The Salvation Army, the Open Hands Free Store, the Second Harvest Food Bank and the Springfield Soup Kitchen each received $5,000 from the veterans group.

The local VFW post Commander Rick Boop, said that his organization donates money to the community each month and it is important that they give money to organizations that help the community.

He said money allocated to the VFW post for charity can only be used for that purpose and those funds usually go to organizations such as the Salvation Army, which received a similar donation last year.

Ryan Ray, with the local Salvation Army, said the money donated by the VFW this year would go towards helping residents with utility, rent and mortgage assistance.

“Some of them are barely hanging on. We want to keep people in their homes. Prevent homelessness, that is what we are big on,” he said.

Ray also called the VFW post champions that help the community and he said the money would also go towards the Salvation Army’s Pathway to Hope program that aims to break the cycles of poverty.

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