{"id":44661,"date":"2021-09-18T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-19T04:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-stand-down-for-veterans-bigger-than-ever\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:20:24","slug":"cortez-stand-down-for-veterans-bigger-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-stand-down-for-veterans-bigger-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Stand Down for Veterans bigger than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Third
Third annual Montezuma Stand Down for Veterans<\/span>Kala Parkinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The third annual Montezuma Stand Down for Veterans event in Cortez took place Saturday, with 38 vendors offering services to veterans.<\/p>\n

Hosted by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5231, the event took place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Montezuma County Annex Building.<\/p>\n

Service providers and organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Elks Lodge, Volunteers of America, Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs and Southwest Center for Independence educate veterans about benefits and help them to secure housing, medical, mental health, automotive, legal, and employment services \u2014 as well as other financial and personal benefits.<\/p>\n

More than 170 veterans attended Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just listen to their story and try to help them out,\u201d said John Davis, event organizer and a member of VFW Post 5231.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s event garnered about double the donations as last year\u2019s did \u2014 not to mention the increasing spike in attendance from year-to-year renders future stand-downs likely, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very patriotic community, and we\u2019re lucky to be a part of it,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

Grants like the Veterans Trust Fund help organizations like the VFW to aid veterans, he said. For the 2021-2022 year, the state grant was awarded to three Southwest Colorado organizations: the VFW Post 5231, American Legion Post 75 and Veteran Assistance Disabled American Veterans Dunger-Smith, Chapter 44, according to the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About 8%, or 2,197 of Montezuma County\u2019s 26,183 people, are veterans, according to 2019 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several community organizations backed the event. A youth group from Lighthouse Baptist Church sung the national anthem Saturday morning, Veterans could get free massages, haircuts and groceries. Food providers included Southwest Pizza, Bubba\u2019s and Croissant Cowboy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Davis, along with other veteran advocates and event contributors, could offer countless examples of veterans whose lives were turned around by the yearly event.<\/p>\n

Last year, he said, a veteran came in facing eviction, and didn\u2019t know what he was going to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he hit the street, he was a new guy,\u201d Davis said. \u201cHis life changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Nelson with the Southwest Center for Independence helped 12 homeless veterans secure housing at last year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the power of this thing,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen only a very few new faces \u2014 which means we\u2019ve done our job.\u201d<\/p>\n

He helps veterans receive every benefit they are entitled to.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for people to have little hiccups in life,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen it becomes recurrent, that\u2019s when they come see me and we get to the root of he problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Nelson and others, helping veterans get the care and resources they need isn\u2019t just a one-day thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an everyday battle,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of his focuses is adaptive technology, and helping veterans and elderly people get caption phones, which provide real-time text adaptations of phone calls.<\/p>\n

He is planning an upcoming stand-down for the Southern Ute Tribe, although a date has not been selected yet.<\/p>\n

Also in attendance at the event were Sen. Michael Bennet\u2019s aide, as well as Rep. Lauren Boebert\u2019s aide.<\/p>\n

Dan Foreman, one attendee, was thankful for the housing and dental help he\u2019s received.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get that taken care of, you\u2019ve got half of life figured out,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

170 veterans attended Saturday\u2019s event <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,167,29,184],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter","tag-veterans-affairs"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86174,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44661\/revisions\/86174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44661"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}