A cafe has been added to Rossville’s American Legion Battlefield Post 214 as a fundraiser and another way to serve veterans and the community.
The Legion Cafe serves specialty coffee, soup, sandwiches and desserts — and has an in-house cake artist, said Judy Nihiser, the vice president of the post’s auxiliary.
The auxiliary, comprised of the relatives of veterans, shares the American Legion’s mission of supporting former members of the U.S. military.
“It’s hard to raise enough money just doing events here and there to continue with our programs,” Nihiser said during a tour of the cafe. “We had this part of the building available, so I said, why don’t we utilize it.”
The cafe is part of the post at 540 Park City Road, and its hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. The cafe opened mid-March and has hosted school groups and visits from area retirement homes, Nihiser said.
Niehiser said she wants younger generations to realize that the nation will always have veterans, and support groups like the American Legion are needed to advocate for veterans and offer them support. Everyone who served honorably is a hero, she said, but a lot of people these days don’t respect veterans anymore.
Zel Haag is also a member of the auxiliary and was serving coffee at the cafe. Haag said she thought the idea for a cafe was excellent. The post stopped serving alcohol a few years ago, and Hagg said the cafe is a healthy replacement for veterans to find community.
“Now they have a great place to just come hang out,” she said.
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Post Commander Garland B. “Jack” Staples said he served in the military for 42 years in different capacities, and his father was a tail gunner in a B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II who flew 25 missions over Germany.
Speaking at the post, he listed the multiple events and opportunities for veterans available there. Tuesday is bingo night, which draws a crowd, he said, and the post also hosts events like this past weekend’s gun show.
“You get a lot of young veterans that say they don’t come around the veterans organizations anymore because we sit around and drink beer and talk war stories,” Staples said. “We do a lot more than that.”
The American Legion post in East Ridge has a bar, as do posts in Calhoun, Cedartown and Cartersville. Staples said the Rossville post is the only post he’s seen that has established a cafe.
Though younger veterans aren’t interested in joining organizations like the American Legion, he said, he’s heard World War II, Korea and Vietnam veterans were also unlikely to join soon after their service — but that changed as the veterans “mellowed out” with age.
The post is having an open house for local veterans and the community April 29, Staples said. He said there will be hot dogs, hamburgers and sodas beginning about noon. He invited the community and legion members who don’t visit the post very often.
“We want them to come out, look at us again and say, ‘Hey, we’re not the bar.’ We’re family-oriented now,” Staples said.
Nihiser said the legion helps veterans understand services offered by the government and connects veterans with help navigating their health care through Veterans Affairs. She said there are a lot of opportunities veterans don’t know about, such as burial in a national cemetery.
As part of its community service work, she said the post delivers food to veterans, has a food bank, and is involved with schools and raising money for athletic teams. Staples added that the food program delivered more than 19,000 pounds of food.
The post is coordinating a visit from Freedom Sings, Nihiser said. Freedom Sings is a group of songwriters from Nashville that turns veteran war stories into songs as a form of therapy. The legion post also offers free art classes as another way to deal with the trauma veterans have experienced, she said.
In the future, Niehiser said she wants to offer more activities and, hopefully, build tiny homes for veterans on the property. Some veterans don’t need a nursing facility, but they can’t live on their own, and a veterans tiny home community would be a perfect middle ground, she said.
Contact Andrew Wilkins at awilkins@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659.