Inaugural Veterans Resource Day held at Athens State

Jul. 20—Athens State University (ATSU) hosted a Veterans Resource Day on Tuesday, July 19, at the Sandridge Student Center Ballroom. Veterans had the opportunity to visit with organizations that offer veterans support services. This was the first year for the event.

Carolyn Carthen, Veterans Educational Assistance Advisor at Athens State University, explained the motivation behind the event, "I am the liaison for veterans educational benefits, and I process the paperwork for the veterans to get paid while they are in school. I send their hours, their enrollment, and I certify them to the VA so they get paid. A lot of times, the veteran or their family members will ask, 'What else is available to us?' To be honest, I don't know because that is not in the education realm."

Carthen organized the event to gather a variety of vendors offering services specifically for veterans in hopes of answering those questions.

ATSU has programs in place to help veterans, such as the Adult Degree Program. "Their military credit can be evaluated and applied towards their degree," Carthen said. "We have a military instructor option for secondary education majors. We have majors that are ideal for someone entering into the work force."

Vendors specializing in many different areas were in attendance, including Mortgage Right, a veteran owned and operated company, who can help veterans with the home loan process. "We do all loan types but today we have our veteran hat on, and it's really just our soft spot and our speciality," Amy Stahl with Mortgage Right said.

Kids and Kin were on-hand with information on the free statewide program providing assistance and support for grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older siblings who provide child care for their relatives' children.

Other companies that came out to participate in the Veterans Resource Day were T-Mobile, Waffle House, Amazon, Limestone County Schools, Limestone County Office of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, TVA and more. An estimated 30 vendors participated in the event.

___

(c)2022 The News Courier (Athens, Ala.)

Visit The News Courier (Athens, Ala.) at enewscourier.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.