Star Group- Veterans Helping Veterans distributes 550 Thanksgiving baskets

By BRITTANY FHOLER

Cove Leader-Press

Star Group-Veterans Helping Veterans passed out 550 turkeys and red and blue bags filled with the ingredients for fixings and sides, including dessert, for a tasty Thanksgiving dinner during their annual Thanksgiving Basket Distribution held Saturday morning. 

As in the past, the distribution event featured members of Star Group-Veterans Helping Veterans, sponsors and representatives of the different organizations and entities that would be receiving bags this year. 

Council member and Mayor Pro Tem Vonya Hart gave welcoming remarks and praised Star Group-VHV for their generosity to the community. 

“I just want to say, of course, thank you. Thank you so much for what you do and continue to do for our community,” Hart said. “Look at all of this. This is just truly, truly amazing. On behalf of the mayor, city council, and the city of Copperas Cove, we just want to say thank you. Thank you just so, so much.”

Sheila Timmons, executive director of Star Group-Veterans Helping Veterans, gave pause to recognize the organization’s founder and president, Jonathan Haywood, who passed away earlier this year in February at 60 years old. 

“We all need to understand that you are not promised tomorrow, and whoever you help today will bless you,” Timmons added. 

Timmons went on to recognize the different Premier Corporate Sponsors who donate each year to help support the efforts of Star Group-Veterans Helping Veterans. 

“Those are the people that give money for everything we do. If I say ‘Hi’, they say, ‘How much?’,” Timmons said. 

One long-time sponsor is PCSI (Professional Contract Services Incorporated). Johnny Dodson, one of the project managers for PCSI, said that PCSI has been honored to be a sponsor of Star Group-Veterans Helping Veterans from the beginning. 

“I mean, they do a phenomenal job,” Dodson said. “As a company that also employs veterans, we know that it’s very important what you do and what you do for your veterans and for the community. From the beginning, our organization has strongly believed in what you guys do every day, and we really appreciate it. The community appreciates it, and we just want to make sure that you guys keep going as long as you can go forever if possible. Thank you very much for what you do, and we’re here for you anytime you need us.”

Another long-time sponsor is the Fort Hood Area Association of Realtors, which donated $5,500 this year.  

FHAAR vice president/president-elect David Hall said a few words before the group presented a check to Timmons. 

“This is a great organization,” Hall said. “We like to help every year. We provide turkeys that the realtors collect this time of year.” 

Other sponsors include Linnemann Realty, JR Herring Rentals, All American Chevrolet Killeen, Century 21 Premier Realtors, AFGE Local 1920, AFGE District 10, American Legion #573, Rock Collison, the French Family, Refresh Spa and Salon, Home Place Floors, Crawford Bowers Funeral Home and Joe Decroce, Oliver Bro. Transmissions, Fort Hord Warrior Way Commissary, H-E-B Plus! Of Copperas Cove, John Sanders, Regina Wesson, Vance Winslow, Cedar Crest, The Leaf Affair Cigar Shop, Lil Tex Family Restaurant, Tanner Roofing, VFW 9191, TRDI (Transient Alert Services), Main Street Tobacco, Extraco Bank of Copperas Cove, Wings Pizza and Things, Fort Cavazos Sentinel and Keeping It Realty Bryant Ward, along with all Star Group Veterans Helping Veterans members. 

Two of the recipients of the Thanksgiving bags were Copperas Cove ISD and Killeen ISD, which distributed the bags to a number of students and their families in need. 

During the distribution of the baskets Saturday morning, SG-VHV vice president John Robertson passed the first bag to CCISD Superintendent Dr. Joe Burns to symbolically pass the bag “across county lines” to Killeen ISD’s Superintendent Dr. Jo Ann Fey. 

Burns shared a few words about how great of an organization Star Group- Veterans Helping Veterans is and has been. 

“This group stands in the gap for their members and for our veterans in the community, but also, since the very beginning, they have stood in the gap for needy children and for needy families, and that’s a place that’s near and dear to my heart,” Burns said. “We have 153 homeless students in Copperas Cove, Texas. They do not have a house that’s theirs. They don’t have a place to go home to at the end of the day, they are living in a tough way. Veterans Helping Veterans, along with other folks, step up each and every day. It’s not just today. If we reach out and we say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem, we’ve got a challenge’, they say, ‘Let us step in and fill the gap.’ So on behalf of Copperas Cove ISD, our Board of Trustees and student body, I want to say thank you to Star Group Veterans Helping Veterans. Y’all are phenomenal friends. You are wonderful community partners. You are the best of the best.” 

Jo Ann Fey shared her own words of thanks for the organization by sharing a story of last year’s distribution, after the bags had been brought back to Killeen to be passed out to students and families. She mentioned a student she had taken notice of during her visits to one campus, who came with his family to get a Thanksgiving basket. The part that stuck with her, she said, was when the little boy picked out the box of cake mix and showed his dad and said, ‘Look, we can have a birthday cake.’ 

“Let me tell you, if that doesn’t touch your heart, not just as an educator, but for the work that you do, and standing in the gap for our school districts and our community, it’s just not going to touch your heart, so thank you,” Fey told Timmons and the other members of SG-VHV. “You are an inspiration to everybody in the community, everybody that we serve, because there’s going to be a little kid that gets to have a piece of cake, or a family that gets to have a Thanksgiving dinner, and it may be the first one they’ve had, it may be the last one that they get to have, but they really, really do need to cherish it and appreciate it, and it’s because of the work that you do. So thank you so much for doing this for my community and for my babies, because that little boy got to have a birthday cake.” 

The various organizations receiving Thanksgiving turkeys and bag full of ingredients for side dishes include: CCISD, Killeen ISD, Bring Everyone in the Zone, Lil Tex Restaurant, Harker Heights Vet Center, DAV 29, Jesus Hope Ministry, WAC Chapter 94, WIC, TRDI, the Soup Kitchen, Prince Hall- Temple, Fort Hood Chapels, the Copperas Cove Golf Course, VFW 9191, All American Chevrolet, Linnemann Realty, Copperas Cove Storage, Copperas Cove Recruiter Program, Central Texas College, the City of Copperas Cove, Oliver Bros. Transmission, PCSI, AFGE Local 1920, Century 21 and members of Star Group-Veterans Helping Veterans.