A group well-known for helping others, needs some help of its own now. A local Veterans of Foreign Wars post will have to close if something does not change soon.
It is not just the Oak Hill-area post fighting to stay open. It is a problem plaguing posts across the county. In Texas, there were 800 VFW posts in the 60s. Now there are just 379.
Bennie Ellis wants desperately to continue the strong history of community service for VFW Post 4443.
"We’re in the process of trying to recruit new members and keep them active, and we're also in need of need leadership,” said Commander Bennie Ellis, VFW Post 4443.
The post off of Highway 620 sits empty except for one night a month.
"We’re lucky if we get 20 people in the meeting,” said Ellis.
At state headquarters VFW is also seeing dwindling numbers as older members pass away.
"The VFW, 70 percent of out membership is WWII vets,” said State Adjutant Roy Grona, Department of Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.
After WWII there were 16 million U.S. veterans who had served in a combat zone. Now, there are only 2 million.
"We’re losing 1,000 WWII veterans a day right now," said Grona.
Grona adds it is difficult to recruit and keep new members.
"If you're a young person and you have a family, you've got a lot of other requirements and you really don’t have a whole lot of time to do other things,” said Grona.
However, three weeks ago, Department of Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars launched a Facebook page in order to appeal to the new generation of returning vets.
Meanwhile, VFW Post 4443 is trying to sell the six acres of land, including the baseball field Lake Travis Youth Association uses.
"We want to get back closer into Austin into Oak Hill and the Y."
Ellis said they hope that will help them get more members and more leaders, so they can keep their work alive.
"We do community service and youth activities,” said Ellis. "That's our goal, not to close."
