BRIEF HISTORY
OF
STARBUCK MEN’S VETERANS AUXILIARY
The Men’s Auxiliary of the VFW Post 4582 in Starbuck, Minnesota was formed on November 14, 2005 by Thirty-One charter members. The first President was Lance Peltier and the first Secretary/Treasurer was Roy Toivonen. The Auxiliary was dedicated primarily to support and assist VFW Post 4582. In the following few years the Men’s Auxiliary continued to grow in membership and became a greater source of support for the Starbuck VFW Post and for the local community. By 2015 the Men’s Auxiliary had increased their membership to 60 plus members and had become the largest VFW Men’s Auxiliary in Minnesota.
However, by 2014 the National VFW organization was in discussions about the possibility of disbanding the VFW Men’s Auxiliaries nationwide in order to form one VFW Auxiliary for both men and women so spouses of the increasing numbers of women veterans could also join the VFW Auxiliary in locations that did not have a Men’s Auxiliary. During the 2016 VFW National Convention it became official and all VFW Men’s Auxiliaries were disbanded.
After consulting with our members and the VFW and its Auxiliary it was decided to form our own non-profit, IRC 501(c) 3 corporation, the Starbuck Men’s Veterans Auxiliary, Inc. By doing this we could keep all of our money local, open up our membership to men and women over 18 years of age who had a desire to support veterans and keep the same great organization that we have enjoyed since 2005. We have increased our membership even more (up 30%) since then and continue to recruit new members. Our current membership includes members from coast to coast and border to border and hopefully soon our first foreign member from Norway. The Starbuck Men’s Auxiliary holds fundraisers throughout the year to raise funds to financially support our local VFW Post and provide volunteer labor to our Post as well as the local community. The Starbuck Men’s Veterans Auxiliary still has the same mission to honor and support our VFW Post, our local veterans and veterans’ organizations as well as support local projects to better our community and we do it with “An Attitude of Gratitude”.
