Canes for Veterans Central Texas seeks volunteers, old Christmas trees

By LYNETTE SOWELL 
Cove Leader-Press 

With Christmas trees in the process of being taken down, a Copperas Cove based nonprofit, Canes for Veterans Central Texas, is again seeking those discarded Christmas trees to be transformed, as the nonprofit’s name reads, into canes for veterans. 
Jamie Willis, founder of Canes for Veterans Central Texas, is working to set up a tree drop-off location for Sunday, January 2, at the Bru-Thru Bottle Shop, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Willis is still working hard to fill orders, and the process can be a long one. The trees must be dried completely for months. In 2019, more than 1,000 Christmas trees were donated to the cause. 
The cost to make a cane ranges from $20 to $60. The old Christmas trees are dried, delimbed, then sanded down, after which an epoxy resin is applied. Then, the canes are customized. 
Shipping costs range from $15 to as much as $100, depending on where the cane is sent, with the organization covering all the cost to make and ship the canes. 
Willis works on the canes out of his garage and has been hoping to expand into a larger workshop, for which his organization held a fundraiser this summer. 
He is also not only looking for trees, but volunteers to help make the canes. 
 “Volunteers should be over the age of 12 , and I can show them how to build the canes from start to finish. Anyone who needs community service hours can also come,” Willis said. “They can contact me at (254) 394-3150.”
Information about the organization can be found at canesforveteranscentex.org, which also has ordering instructions. 
A 100 percent disabled veteran, Willis began his endeavor to help other veterans in 2016, when he received an aluminum cane from the Department of Veterans Affairs. 
Unfortunately, that first cane broke. He then came across the Florida-based Free Canes for Veterans, run by a Navy veteran. Willis learned how to make canes from him, then made a cane for himself. What has followed over the past five years is a succession of canes. 
Willis has said that the cane making and giving them away has gotten much bigger than  he ever imagined. 
Canes For Veterans also accepts monetary donations via at canesforveteranscentex@gmail.com. Willis also welcomes supplies such as sandpaper, polyurethane; clear epoxy resin, draw knives, lathe knives, and interleaf flap disk wheels for four-inch angle grinders.