POTTERS MILLS — The Potters Mills Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 9575, established in 1947 and located along Route 322 near Potters Mills, has a serious problem. PennDOT is constructing a new four-lane section of Route 322, and it has taken the VFW’s property by eminent domain.
“We’ve been paid (for the property), but we have to be out by March 15,” said post commander and Marine Corps veteran Walter Mayes. “The 12th will be our last operating day.”
But, the post has nowhere to go.
The post has 110 first-class members who are veterans. It also has an auxiliary — formerly just open to women, but now open to men, too — and a home association made up of about 200 social members. “Social members can be anybody, but they cannot hold an office and they cannot vote,” Mayes said. ‘Somewhere in Pennsylvania law it says in order to have social members we must have a canteen or a club, and we’re losing that.”
Losing its land would be a devastating blow to the post, as well as to the community, Mayes said. The bar and club is the post’s chief source of income, much of which goes to local charities and individuals who have suffered loss. He said the post donated more than $53,000 to local people in need over the past several years, and those donations would cease if the post can’t soon be relocated.
Mayes said the current 4,000-square-foot building is much larger than needed for the post’s membership, and the group would like to erect a building half that size on a property of about 2 acres. The search is on for land in the Potters Mills/Potter Township area, but north of Route 322, as the south side of the road is slated to be expanded to four lanes to Boalsburg.
Most of the VFW’s members reside in the Potter Township and Penns Valley areas, according to Mayes, and the present location is convenient for members. “How far can you go before you start to lose membership?” said Mayes. He said that several leads on available properties are being pursued, but none have panned out yet.
The VFW will still exist as long as the members hold one meeting a month. The Old Fort American Legion post has agreed to let the VFW hold monthly meetings in its facility temporarily, at no charge.
“We’ll probably do that,” Mayes said. He said that even if the post finds land for a new building, county and township officials have told him it will take at least a year until required permits are secured and the new building is constructed and ready for occupation. “We’re going to be out of business for at least a year.”
Another concern for Mayes is that the members running the Potters Mills VFW and other veterans’ organizations are mostly Korean and Vietnam-era veterans who are aging, and younger vets are not stepping in to replace them. ‘Society has changed,” he said. “Now you’ve got both parents working, and you’ve got to take the kids to soccer, you’ve got to take them to basketball, and all this stuff, and they don’t have the time.”
For more information, call Mayes at (814) 364-1383.
