The past 12 months have brought waves of storms across Iowa, wreaking havoc, uprooting families, and challenging leaders at every level. For members of the American Legion Auxiliary, those months called for extraordinary efforts to help others while they also struggled to help themselves.
    Norma Hawkins of Lawler and Iowa’s American Legion Auxiliary president, is thankful for the resilience of the state’s 36,000 members.
    “They have had to deal with tornadoes, floods and high winds, yet we came together as an American Legion family helping our members and the community,” Hawkins said.
    Despite the challenges, members supported the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown. They provided special chairs to give patients comfort, position and support; they replaced badly deteriorating benches; and they raised money and awareness for the Veterans Creative Arts Festival.
    “Through this (Creative Arts) program veterans have an opportunity to show their artistic achievements and compete with other veterans,” Hawkins said. “The competition instills a sense of pride and accomplishment for them.”
    Hawkins will have the opportunity to share those success stories with the Auxiliary’s National President Jan Pulvermacher-Ryan when she visits here July 11-13. The visit gives the leader of the nation’s largest patriotic women’s organization an opportunity to hear the stories of its members’ personal loss and sacrificial service.
    Pulvermacher-Ryan, of Madison, Wisc., will address the Iowa Auxiliary statewide convention on July 12 when she will highlight the “Educating Children of Warriors” campaign to raise $1.2 million to endow a scholarship program to educate the children of military families.