Several winters ago, Lois Cornish says she met a real Grinch: a notoriously cantankerous veteran who lived at the Veterans Home of California-Chula Vista. In our ongoing “Volunteers Serving Veterans” series, CalVet highlights Cornish, who began volunteering at the Chula Vista Home when it opened in 2000. She soon started recruiting some of her American […]
Whenever Dorothy Lipps volunteers to work in the tiny store inside the Veterans Home of California-Redding, she comes dressed for the part. “I’m very patriotic,” said Lipps, who began helping out at the Home seven years ago. “I always wear red, white, and blue. My two sisters and I always have done that, even when […]
Shortly after the Veterans Home of California-Fresno opened in October 2013, Gladys Garza-Brown took her former husband, an ailing veteran, there to scout it out as a place where he might live. She also brought along her Border Collie, Chase. The moment they walked through the doors, staff immediately began recruiting her and Chase to […]
As the Korean War raged in 1951, Lois Sweeney decided to become one of “The few. The proud. The Marines.” She enlisted and soon found herself at Parris Island, South Carolina — one of the 138,000 recruits who trained there throughout the war. “I was in the swamp,” the 92-year-old resident of the Veterans Home […]
Arlene Kepplin loved volunteering so much at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville that she did so for more than two decades. Her remarkable span began in 1998; she kept going strong until the pandemic in 2020 severely limited all volunteerism at Yountville—and at all other seven Veterans Homes. The majority of Kepplin’s volunteerism was at […]
Long before Marcus Langley made his reputation as a concrete contractor in Sacramento, he made history as a member of the 14th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery unit fighting for the Union during the Civil War. The 14th was formed in North Carolina, his birthplace, in 1864. Langley, a 25-year-old who listed his occupation as a […]
Emmanuel Hodrick lets his fingers guide him whenever he plays the electronic keyboard at the Veterans Home of California-Redding. “I find the two raised black keys—D-Flat and E-Flat—and I know Middle-C is the key to the left,” Hodrick said. As we celebrate Black History Month, CalVet honors this resilient 60-year-old Army veteran who, blind for […]
In 1908, Col. Allen Allensworth came to Tulare County in the southern San Joaquin Valley to create a town where African Americans could self-govern and be independent. Born in 1842, Allensworth was 12 years old when he defied a Kentucky law that prohibited enslaved people from learning to read or write. As punishment for learning […]
Your experiences matter, and your voice is invaluable. CalVet is on a mission to enhance the support and services we provide, and your insights will help us better serve women veterans. By completing this survey, you’ll make a lasting impact on the support services we offer all California women veterans, now and for future […]
They, too, had a dream. In 1979, after Congress had yet again failed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday, a group of students from an Oakland high school refused to take “no” for an answer. To the contrary, the Apollos—members of Oakland Technical High School’s Class of 1981—became students on a […]
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