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IAM Local 2003 Veterans Committee Chairperson Pamela Evans recently organized a resource fair for military veterans in her Alabama community.
“My main goal for the entire event was to provide resources to the community and let them know what benefits are available to them,” said Evans. “I have a lot of co-workers who ask me questions like ‘How can I get benefits?’ ‘How can I get medical care?’ or ‘How can I file a claim?’ I can’t do that for them, so I decided to bring help to them.”
Evans is a veteran herself, having served in the Alabama Army National Guard for 24 years, reaching the rank of Sergeant. She made take-home bags filled with pamphlets and informational material from each organization for every attendee.
“I’m glad that I did it,” said Evans. “Because a lot of retired military people were not even in the VA system, lots who were in a war zone, in helicopter crashes and such, and they never even had the opportunity to file a claim.”
The event, which was called ‘Veterans Helping Veterans: Understanding Your Benefits,’ was set up so that veterans service organizations could speak one-on-one at their booths with each of the approximately 85 attendees. The local U.S. Veterans Affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans (DAV), American Veterans (Am Vets), Aflac insurance, and IAM Veterans Services participated in the event.
“Pamela’s hard work brought information to veterans in her community who normally would not hear about the benefits available or the healthcare guaranteed to them by the PACT Act,” said IAM Veteran Services Coordinator Richard Evans. “She did a great job, and I look forward to working with her more to get IAM veteran members the care and benefits they deserve.”
Pamela works as a QDR technician for the aerospace and defense company M1 Support Services. In addition to being the chairperson for the local’s Veterans Committee, she also chairs the Women’s Committee.
“It was a great honor to work with Richard and the IAM Veterans Services Department on this project,” said Evans. “I was so happy that he could come down and assist me with it. Hopefully, in the future, we can work together again to help the veterans in IAM and the community.”
