Dear editor,
We appreciate The Eatonton Messenger running our story last week, where Eatonton Veterans Thrift Store awarded $40,000.00 to Honor Flight.
This money allowed Middle Georgia Honor Flight the ability to send Mission No. 27, and Conyers Honor Flight the ability to send Mission No. 28.
We noticed, however, that there was a misprint of who sponsored these two flights; it was not the VFW, it was the Eatonton Veterans Thrift store.
We are thankful to our local VFW Post 6686 for helping our store get started. We understand there could be some confusion since originally our name was Eatonton VFW Thrift Store. Still, shortly after we formed, our board of directors realized that what we wanted as our mission was different than the VFW’s mission, and we decided to separate the two.
While the VFW, or Veterans of Foreign Wars is a great veterans organization, its mission is focused only on veterans of foreign wars and doing things at a higher level in congress. We wanted our mission to reach all veterans and not limit us to only those who were on foreign soil.
Our board of directors had a meeting, and we legally changed our name in 2023 to Eatonton Veterans Thrift Store, with our mission focusing on all veterans’ projects and programs in our local areas. We just wanted to take this opportunity to explain that we are two completely different organizations that both support veterans.
Again, we thank all our supporters and donors for everything you do. Come by and see us, enjoy some shopping, and help us help our veterans!
Nikki Barker, Eatonton VFW Thrift Store