On January 5th, the Clovis Veterans Memorial District (CVMD) held its first Veterans Roundtable of the year.
Lorenzo Rios, CEO of CVMD hosts the Roundtable the first Wednesday of every month. The Roundtable was launched in 2016 for the purpose of facilitating a collaborative community for Veterans.
One of the main goals for Rios was to help local Veteran groups across the Central Valley come together and work to make an impact in the community.
Just as King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable assembled to address concerns of their day, these Military Veterans, come together to organize events and find solutions for different issues.
These Veterans represent organizations from throughout the Central Valley, such as the Vietnam Veterans of America, Help Heal Veterans, VFW Post 3225, American Legion, and Blue Star Moms.
If several events are scheduled on the same day, the groups rearrange and consolidate their resources. This allows for a larger event which facilitates more of an impact to the community and their fellow war heroes.
Rios explained the main reason for having these meetings is to make sure these events are organized by all local veteran groups in a collaborative manner.
“They’re willing to move dates so they don’t compete against each other,” Rios said. “They sometimes collaborate to create a bigger event with less work. That makes the event that much more productive because you don’t have the community split up in two different sections.”
The goal of this month’s meeting was to show the local veteran organizations the events CVMD is tracking for the entire calendar year.
If there were any events missing for a specific month, a group representative would bring the event to attention to be added to the calendar.
“We’ve got a lot of new people coming into the area,” Rios said. “We’ve got a lot of new veterans who are moving into the area, and when they come here the first question they ask is ‘Is there a list of activities, organizations and when they meet, how do we get involved with the community,’. That is what this is attempting to answer.”
Annual events such as Spooktacular, Here Comes Santa, and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, to name a few, have been finalized for their prospective dates. Once any remaining events are finalized the CVMD will post the calendar onto their website.
The Roundtable is held the first Wednesday of every month. Local veterans are welcome to attend, listen, and participate in the meetings.
For information on events already posted by CVMD and what time the Clovis Veterans Roundtable starts, you can check out their calendar of events on their website at https://www.cvmdistrict.org/calendar-of-events.