Veterans Outreach Center is grateful for the partnership with McQuaid Jesuit High School and their Row For Hope crew team. After months of planning their annual special event, rowing down the Erie Canal to raise much-needed funding for our services, everything came to a halt as COVID-19 reared its ugly head. But, the McQuaid students were dedicated and motivated to move forward to find ways to support our local heroes. The team began selling t-shirts and wristbands in their bookstore and set up a GoFundMe page.

Our country has struggled since our founding to live out the concept of “Equity for all.” We’ve seen throughout our history that many social movements have led to great changes for people of color, women, the LGBTQ population, laborers, people experiencing ageism, and more. But this work is far from done, and while I assume that most Americans are aware of systemic racism, passive racism, microaggressions, and other related inequalities, I think we were all appalled to see the murder of George Floyd. His passing became the catalyst for a strong movement to call attention to the forms of racism that occur in our country even though they are often not overt enough to make headlines. But with this very important movement afoot, we are also starting to see other groups of people (primarily law enforcement) become the focus of many people’s anger. And whenever I see an entire group of people lumped together based on one arbitrary characteristic, such as their profession, I have to assume that the sentiment directed at the whole group can’t truly apply to every member in it, because for the same reason other stereotypes are faulty, human beings are unique and don’t all fit a particular mold.

During the beautiful month of May, we celebrate Military Appreciation Month! Congress made this declaration in 1999 to ensure all Americans were given the chance to publicly show their appreciation for our troops, past and present.