The pandemic has brought economic hardships across the country and one of the places that have been hit has been the Earl S. Bailey Post 430 of the American Legion.
Located at 2701 East 8th street, the nonprofit organization’s mission over the course of its existence has been committed to the four pillars of service and advocacy which includes Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation, National Security, Americanism and Children and Youth.
However, the financial effects of the COVID-19 shutdown have been pretty harsh and the organization is looking to raise money.
The facility was completely shut down in excess of 12 months.
Additionally, Bingo, which has been the primary source of revenue, was shut down for even longer.
The facility and Bingo has since reopened for business full time. There’s still a slow but steady growth. However, Bingo is only at about 1/4 of the income level that it was prior to the COVID-19 shutdown.
Adjutant of the post, Preston Parrott has been helping get the word out about the financial hardships that the post is facing.
“Recently, we’ve been, like everyone else, hurt by COVID,” Parrott said. “We conduct two sessions of Bingo in the Bingo hall. That used to be the main support force for our funding. The COVID quarantine killed that. We couldn’t operate in our canteen because we couldn’t serve food so that was shut down. Even after the quarantine was lifted and bingo came back, we’ve been making progress but it’s operating about 20 percent of what it was before quarantine.”
Parrott said that the post currently has only five employees.
“Everything else is done by volunteer,” Parrott said. “My job is strictly volunteer. The canteen bartenders are employees. We have a paid book keeper. We also have a maintenance guy but other than that, we’re strictly a volunteer outfit.”
The goal is to raise $200,000.
“That will have us back to having some cash reserves, plus we’d be able to take care of the things that we normally support,” Parrott said.
The American Legion post was established in 1927.
Throughout the years, Post 430 has supported organizations such as the Boy Scouts, the high school JROTC units, the Boys and Girls Club, the High Sky Ranch, Reel Thanx and other needy families.
In addition, the post has also donated the use of its facility to organizations that don’t have a place of their own.
“We support needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Parrott said. “What we used to do, once upon a time, we gave food baskets. But a food basket is only good for one meal. Not everyone likes canned yams. I love them but that’s me. What we’ve done, we buy gift cards from H-E-B or wherever and give the family the card so that they can buy what they need and what their family needs. I can name several vegetables that I eat that not a lot of people like but I do but that’s life. We just want to give them something that they like and not waste it.”
However, with the financial situation, it has been hard to continue to do that.
The costly repairs and maintenance to the facility and equipment have been pretty big.
“One thing is that when we don’t have money because of the whole COVID situation and that cuts into us giving to the different high schools ROTC programs,” Thomas Bowe said. “It cuts into us giving grants and scholarships to different high schools. … We help sponsor a girls softball league. Then we give money towards disasters so there’s a lot of outgoing but not a lot of incoming because of COVID (and) because people don’t get out anymore.”
The largest single repair cost has been approximately $54,000 for a partial new roof on the 8th Street facility.
“Coming back from COVID, we’ve had a lot of repairs that we had to make,” Post Commander Tony Morgan said. “We had to put a new roof and stuff that we had to replace to keep going.”
Parrott said they had to use close to 75% of their cash reserves to maintain the community support activities to keep the facilities and equipment in good operating orders.
“During the COVID breakdown, our coolers and refrigerators sat there idled and broke down,” Parrott said. “We’ve had to fix that. During COVID, even without any income, we still had to pay the bills. Our AC unit on top of our roof, the freeze last year ruined that and caused damage to the roof. We’ve had to replace part of the roof. We don’t want to cut back on our donations and our care and everything but we’re having to make some dramatic cutbacks so we can still support, to some degree, these places and we want to continue to support at the level we have. … We’re just trying to get ourselves healthy and build our cash reserves so that we can take care of some of these things.”
The goal is to raise $200,000 and Parrott says there is no deadline.
“It’s an everlasting request,” Parrott said. “We’ll continue to support all of the people that we love to support and we’ll continue to do that and our money is not going to the improvement of the canteen. May it fix the roof? Yes. Fix the coolers? Yep. … It’s an ongoing request.”
Post 430 is an a 501(c)19 organization and the support is tax-deductible.
People can mail their donations to the Earl S. Bailey Post 430 PO Box 1109, Odessa, Texas 79760. People can call 432-332-5582 for more information.
