- Hi neighbors.

Welcome to Look for the Helpers, portraits, and Community Service.

I'm Cynthia Tyler.

In every community there are those who step up to lend a helping hand, giving their time and putting in the energy to make life better for those around them.

They don't do it for recognition, but because they care.

And it's what keeps our communities growing strong.

Tonight we sit down with two of our neighbors making a difference in the place that we call home Commander Lee Henkelman has led the Lowville American Legion for many years.

He shares his passion for helping out our country's veterans.

And Stephanie Russell was told that a church would be a great place to start volunteering, and now she helps run a strong community support service system.

Please join me as we celebrate our local volunteers.

With me, I have Lee Henkelman of the American Legion in Laville Post 1 6 2.

Yes.

All right.

And you are the commander there, or have stepped down as commander after 14 years of service.

Fabulous.

Now, how did you become Commander of the Legion?

- You know, I was active actually at our VFW in Laville and some other organizations.

And it was a good group of bold termers that had reached out to me and said, Hey, listen, would you consider joining our post at this time?

I belonged to another post, and we had recently moved to the area, and I was a member of the Post for a month.

Next thing I know, I'm the commander.

- Oh, don't you love it when they just put you in positions - Like that and, well, we've done a lot there.

We've done a lot there to improve our membership, which has increased significantly.

- So tell us what you've done to improve.

I understand that you have done some amazing community outreach.

Start with this.

With COVID.

There was a a, a rolling.

- Well, what we did is we had a portable mess hall, - Portable mess hall, - And what it was in the back of my pickup truck, we put a trailer, and on that trailer we had coolers, we had barbe, barbecue Equipment, grill, s grills.

Yeah.

You know, the whole bit.

And we went to various intersections throughout the area, and we set up for these truckers who had no place to eat, and we'd flag 'em down.

We'd give 'em free hamburgers, free hot dogs, free soda.

We refused to accept any money.

We then took that to the next level.

We went to the local hospital and we fed all the employees at the hospital.

We went to Walmart and fed all these essential workers that were working during this time, just as a thank you for the service that they were giving to our community, simply by coming into work and taking the, that element of risk.

- And that's so wonderful that, 'cause people always think of the Legion as just a service for veterans, but here the veterans are reaching out and supporting the community.

So I understand the Legion also does a lot of advocacy work for soldiers and veterans.

Tell us about that.

- I currently serve as the state chairman of Legislative Affairs for the American Legion and on the National Vice Chair.

So I spent a lot of time in dc.

Senator Schumer, an example, has been very helpful in helping us get through a lot of veteran related things with our needs.

Elise Deonka, someone that we work with a lot, and it's just been a tremendous opportunity to look at the needs of the veteran and come up with various ways that we can help them as an advocacy group.

The American Legion itself is the largest advocate for veterans of any place in the world, quite frankly.

We're a huge, huge organization.

- Yes.

Every, every town, every village, there's always a post I I grew up with the one in Philadelphia, so I completely understand.

- You've been there many a time.

- It's a great place.

- Yes.

It's - So now you started out active duty United States Army for 14 years.

I - Understand.

Well, I, I was actually in the Army for 24 years.

- 24 years.

Oh, - The 14 years is when I joined the Legion.

I spent, I had 14 years in the military.

Didn't even know what the American Legion was.

- Spent - A lot of time overseas where you don't see legions, although I have since learned that.

There's one in Athens, Greece where I've been.

- Wow.

- And there's one in France.

They're literally throughout the world.

It's, but it's just a tremendous organization.

It just does so much for our veterans, so much for our communities.

- And as you served in the military, that is service and the legion is service.

Where did you find the inspiration to serve?

- You know, people, you, you don't join the United States Army for the money, the pension that we receive, I, I say this as a retired soldier, is not a significant amount of money at all.

Is truly from the heart.

If you serve is truly God, honor and country.

And that's why we serve in the military and that's what we do.

So it's, it's truly from the heart.

- What are the some things that you have found have really enriched your life in your service to the Legion?

In, - You know, just seeing the various things that we've gotten through over the years from the GI Bill, that was a legion originated opportunity.

The PACT Act, which passed not that long ago, that was a legion initiative that we pushed through the Congress, we pushed it through the Senate and the President signed off on it.

That deals with the toxic burn pits that we have had throughout the Middle East.

And it was something that just wasn't looked at.

But we, as Allegion as an organization, were able to take that bill, push it all the way through.

And now thousands of veterans are, are getting the, the benefits that they need.

Yeah.

The healthcare that they need.

- Right.

That's fantastic.

So, of all of your time at Legion and your service, what's something that is really, really cemented in your mind as what enriches your life the most?

- You know, it's, it's goes back to being in the military and I talk about God honored country.

It's the same with the Legion.

It's something that you, you do, you have a chance to assure.

You go there.

You can have a cold beer or a soda.

You tease each other, various branches of the service.

We're at each other all the time.

And there's a, the, the brotherhood, the comradeship that, that you develop with the people that you have at the post.

But then just being able to reach out and do the things that we do within our community, there's a feeling from that as well.

So there's a, a multitude of levels of honor and service.

- Hmm.

Now I understand that you have a specific unit here at Fort Drum, 10th Mountain Division that you are attached to it with your post.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Absolutely.

We we're, we hooked up know 14 years ago with the aviation side of the house at Fort Drum and the three 10 GSAB General Services Aviation Brigade, which has numerous choppers and is one of the most deployed units in the country, in the world.

We've developed a relationship with them over the years where my wife and I will go to their military balls when they come back from a deployment, we'll do things for them, whether it's pillows for the pro, you know, for the soldiers sending care packages when they're overseas.

They've also been helping us with like our local food pantry.

They help build that.

They're about a month from now, they're actually gonna be tearing out flooring to put in new flooring.

They've been involved in our Legion doing things.

The Cream Cheese Fest Festival, which is a huge - Thing.

Oh, so much fun.

- They'll give us 60 some soldiers to help out with that.

- Wow.

- So the three 10 and the Laville American Legion have a very strong relationship.

As you walk into their headquarters, you'll see the, the keys to the village of Laville and just a tremendous organization.

And it's great to work with the young soldiers and have them become a part of our legion and the things that we're doing.

- Absolutely.

I can't imagine how much it means to a soldier who's far from home, who's, you know, apart from everything that they know and love, and they find their community established here and they feel welcomed and supported.

That's just such a wonderful service that you offer them.

You know, - What's interesting is, is these kids, they'll come into the Post and we have a full military museum on our second floor.

- A museum.

How exciting.

Okay.

Yeah.

- American Legion family.org.

One of your staff members here who did a phenomenal job on doing a thing with pbs.

Tracy, we have got a, a video, it's only five minutes long, and I encourage people to go to American Legion family.org and look at that video.

It speaks to the history of the military in Lewis County.

And then it drills down specifically to our museum going back to the soldiers.

They're welcome in that.

And I would think that a lot of this stuff with Borum, they absolutely love it.

They'll spend hours up there just going through the old stuff.

Wow.

Looking at the old weapons dating back to the Spanish American War.

Oh.

All the way up through Vietnam.

It's just, it's, it's just amazing.

And they've been involved.

Matter of fact, we're in the process now of knocking out some walls in our museum to build another section, which is gonna be a civil war section.

Wow.

And that's all being done with the three 10 GSAB out of four drum, the aviation side.

- Oh, how exciting that is.

And especially when you're creating something like a museum to preserve the history of the region, of our, of our community and our service here.

That's absolutely phenomenal.

How, that's fantastic.

So from all of this, is there any way that a person who is not a veteran can support the American Legion?

- We're never gonna say no to a volunteer.

- Okay.

- If someone comes to the Post, and there's a lot of people that help us out, whether it be Memorial Day and helping out in the kitchen with the food, whether it be a parade, whatever it might be, we're always looking for volunteers.

So if people wanna help, if they wanna contribute, we encourage them to do that.

We, we have a military honor guard that does numerous funerals, and it's a joint honor guard, by the way.

It's the Legion, the VFW and our Marine Corps League.

- Oh, wow.

- So it's, there's a lot of stuff they can volunteer with.

- Where can they go to find out more information about the American Legion?

- The, if you go to our website, American Legion family.org, there's different people that can click on there.

That's probably the best way.

- Okay.

Now, - Or on our Facebook page, I apologize.

We have a very active Facebook page and you can always me message there.

And those messages go directly to myself personally.

- Okay.

Now, we talked about Facebook here when we were getting ready, we were warming up and chatting.

You have a Facebook page about a and it's a food blog.

- Yes.

- Now what about that?

Tell us about the service for that.

That's obviously, you're volunteering for that.

You don't take any money for it.

Tell us about it.

- It's called Eating, eating in Upstate New York and beyond.

And what it does, it focuses on family owned restaurants.

It's not a, we don't do chains, although there are exceptions.

When Arby's did come out with this monster sandwich, I, I had to write about it, but it's a log that focuses on local family owned restaurants.

It's a, I've got over, well, I've got right now, 24,000 followers.

We average over a hundred thousand hits each time.

You know, I write something - And you never take a free meal.

- And I won't take a free meal.

No.

That's if, I mean beer, I take a beer.

But can I say that on tv?

It is just, it's just a lot of fun.

It's something I do more as a hobby than anything else, - But it certainly gives back because now you're giving voice to all these small mom and pops that, you know, could really use the boost.

So you're definitely giving - The restaurants love it.

- Of course.

- That's fantastic.

Mimi's here in town, not far from where we're sitting right - Now.

Oh, always a good time.

Yes.

- I remember her story once I did the, the blog when she had been on, only open for maybe a year at this point, she had to hire another cook at another waitress.

- Fantastic.

- It is one of her favorite stories.

And it's just, it's amazing what the blog does do, but it's truly to support local family owned restaurants.

I'll never write a negative.

If I have a bad experience, I don't write about it.

- Well then you're just a good person to share.

- Yeah.

- Wonderful.

- And quite often the restaurants will call or send me a message and say, well, why didn't you write about this?

And I'll tell 'em why I didn't.

- There you go.

So now last question as we're finishing up here.

What would you say to somebody to inspire them to volunteer?

- If you feel a void in your life and you, you, you wanna complete that void, one of the best ways to do that is to give back to your community and not to get religious.

But I'll tell you what, I've been very successful in life and I contribute a lot of that to volunteer work and the things that we do in our community.

God rewards you.

I, I truly believe that.

And so that's what I would say.

If you feel a void in your life, here's an opportunity to close that gap.

- Wonderful.

Lee, thank you so much for being with us.

We really appreciate you being here, and we wish you success in all of your future endeavors.

- Great.

Thank you so much.

- With me now is Stephanie Russell from E Emmanuel Congregational Church, putting the proof of the good word into good Works.

Thank you so much for being with us, Stephanie.

- Thanks for - Having me.

All right.

So I understand as we were talking earlier, that you are responsible for a really fantastic project that has come up and is going on at e Emmanuel Congregational Church.

Tell us about it.

- So I run the community meals at Emanuel, and how it started was the county approached us about three years ago as they were doing a warming center at Salvation Army where people would be spending the night and they approached different churches and asked if they would like to serve a meal first.

So after the first year, it kind of fell off a little bit.

And then when the second year started with the warming center, I was like, all right, we're gonna go full force.

So what we did is we began becoming a warming center from three to eight.

And then we started a soup kitchen also.

So we're a soup kitchen from five to seven.

And then just recently, about three months ago, 'cause what I had found is a lot of the diners had said, there's no food pantries open past three 30, and we have to, we're trying to work and, and we have to take our lunch to go.

So I was like, okay, we could do this.

So then we started about two months ago, full on, we're a food pantry Monday, Wednesday, Friday from four to seven.

- So how wonderful you, you found a need in the community and you met it head on.

Yeah, that's absolutely outstanding.

So can you give us an idea about how many people you serve in Emanuel?

- So it fluctuates a lot depending on the month.

I can give you stats From the last couple months, we've had about 2000 meals.

Wow.

Every month, our first two months at the food pantry, we've served over 300, 340 people.

We do that three, three times a week and oh, around 2000 items.

- Wow.

- That's, that's amazing.

Yeah.

What a Wow.

That is - Incredible.

That is so much.

It's so that obviously is a very exciting prospect.

So this was a huge volunteer project.

Have you always been involved in volunteering?

Has it been a big part of your - Life?

Actually, yes.

I started when I was younger and I've pretty much done something pertaining to volunteering.

I try to do all different types, but I think I've kind of found my niche with this guy.

- Oh wow.

That's so, so literally from your childhood, we had talked a little bit about a special camp that really sparked this whole journey of - Volunteering.

Can you tell me about that?

When I was in high school, one of my best friends was diagnosed with cancer and we had agreed to do a camp for kids with cancer called Camp Good Days and Special Times together.

And unfortunately she didn't make it that summer.

So I went ahead and did it and then did it for several years after.

And it was beautiful.

It was so fun.

And it's magical pretty, it it, it's a place where kids, no matter what's going on, everybody's, you know, on the same field.

That's it.

It's beautiful.

Anyway, so, so, yep.

And then I've just done volunteering ever since.

Ever since.

- Yep.

Now your best friend obviously was a huge inspiration in your life to volunteer.

Is there anybody else in your life that's been really, really special to you that's kind of - Just like, yeah, let's go, let's go.

Well, I have a best friend, Carrie Lynn, who actually had introduced me to, or had suggested that I go to a church to look for volunteer volunteering opportunities, opportunities, nailed it as we do for volunteering opportunities.

And so she has been, but a lot of it's just, I guess I just kind of do, I have to stay busy - That, that's such a common theme.

We see that all the time.

It's just, I have so much time and I want to give, and I'm like, so, so they'll actually say, let's go out and volunteer.

That's absolutely amazing.

How has volunteering enriched and changed your life?

- Well, it's been, so what happened was is before I started this program, I had been sick for a while.

And when you're sick, you are typically the one that needs to be taken care of a lot.

And that can be kind of overwhelming for people.

And so, especially somebody who's used to taking care of others.

So it kind of gave me the opportunity once I was feeling better, to not only help others, but help 'em from a position where I could relate, where it could be.

'cause it can be kind of rough to ask for help of course.

So I try to do it in a sense where people are coming to our house to eat.

You know what I mean?

We're, we're not, it's like the food pantry.

What you do is you come in, you fill out a slip, and while you eat, we go get your food for you.

You know, it's like we try to, to help without people having to ask for help.

You know, you give them that human connection.

Yeah, exactly.

So, so that's, yep.

- That's, that's where you're at there, - That's where - I'm at.

So now Emmanuel has the warming center, the cooling center, the soup kitchen, and the, the food pantry Now.

Yes.

Are there any other plans to make even bigger contributions to the community?

- So here's the story I have learned in my past year and a half doing this is that find something you're good at and make that your niche and just do well at that.

I, there's a lot of doubling resources, you know, sometimes in a community and people have the, the, the best intentions with doing it, but I've decided food is my cake and I will just stick with what I know.

May we grow as far as size?

Yeah, probably.

I mean, when we started we were only five, 10 meals a night.

And now we're, you know, 2000 a a month.

- So you're feeding a community.

- Yeah.

So, so I mean, and that will grow and hopefully with outreach will grow.

I am trying to look to get transportation.

We've applied for a grant because there's a lot of people out there, especially during the winter that can't get to us.

- So - I would like to be able to help them.

We have done a lot to become accessible at the church.

So we have a brand new accessible bathroom downstairs.

We're working on putting a chair lift down there.

So basically, I believe we'll grow internally, but as far as taking on new programs, probably just nail what we're doing pretty well here.

Yeah.

And then stick with that a little, - Because that's about enough.

My goodness.

- Well, I say that, but then again, I was just gonna be a soup kitchen when I started, so.

Right.

- But you rise to the challenge and to the meet the needs of everybody that's in the community.

- Yeah.

To try and look for something that needs to be done.

Right.

Instead of doing what, that was a big thing that I learned.

So when I started the warming center aspect of it, I created a room in the church and I put couches in there, TV games, and it was separate from where we typically serve our meals.

And I thought, oh, this would be great.

They're gonna love this.

And they went and we had our, our beautiful diners go and stay.

And then after a couple months, they were like, well, we feel kind of separate, you know, we wanna be downstairs with all the different volunteers and, and with all this stuff going on.

So that's when I started learning, oh, maybe I should ask, you know, because that's a lot of things too, is that especially when we wanna try and help people, we typically are the ones who assume what they need help with.

Right, right.

So we're, we're thinking, oh, I'm gonna help.

I'm gonna do this to help.

But that's when I started asking.

Yeah.

So like when we opened the food pantry, I did a survey and said, okay, what do you guys want in a food pantry?

Or what are things that you need?

Since we serve a lot of the unhoused population, it's easier to have, you know, to ask them.

And of course.

And to have input from them go right to the source.

Yeah, exactly.

Of course.

Yeah.

Why give them a can that they need a can opener to open, you know what I mean?

Right.

Or certain things like that.

Exactly.

- So you've, so you've identified challenges to the program and you're solving them as you go.

So those are a couple of challenges.

What other challenges have you found?

Like are you having challenges finding resources or volunteers?

How can people help out?

- So they can always call me (315) 777-6643.

Very exciting.

I just got a work phone a couple months ago before that was my home phone.

So that was fun.

So they can always do that.

They can go to, we have a website that we're starting, but they can go to the Emanuel website.

They can also go to our Facebook page and message us and everything.

We're, we're a strong or a small but mighty staff.

So everything, people have to kind of have patience because there's only a couple of us doing it, but we will get to you and we would love.

So I have so many different ways they can come help organize the food pantry.

They can come help serve.

Right now we have about 12 churches underneath us.

When I first started, it was kind of tough because I was taking on this whole thing and I was like, how, how am I going to serve the food?

Who's gonna cook the food?

So what I did do is I went to boces.

That was really cool.

So I worked on boces.

Yes.

And the, the teacher there teaches during school, he'll do a lesson once a week and then they cater for us.

So That's cool.

That's amazing.

But yeah, so then I, I went to the churches and so I have 12 that are partnering with us now.

And how we do it typically is we have people host the night.

So I have had different agencies, different businesses, and different churches.

So if it's something you're interested in, so it doesn't have to be a long-term commitment.

No.

You can just come in and help for one evening.

So yes, that's basically what you can do is if you're interested, you can call me and I can say, all right, usually I have people tour the facility so they know what they're contributing their time to.

- Right.

- So, and then you can bring in like six members a group, and then you get to host a soup kitchen for the night.

Wow.

And so, yep, yep.

It's a lot of fun.

We do it with a whole bunch of different people.

- That is absolutely phenomenal.

I am just so gobsmacked that that's, it's such a wonderful thing to see a small, but like you said, small but mighty church take on the good works and it's, it's absolutely fantastic to see.

And it's a, an absolute gift to the community.

And 12 churches you said.

That's amazing.

So is that across Jefferson County or is that across?

- Yeah, it's across Jefferson County.

And so either they contribute by donating Stitcher or pantry or donating, helping us financially or volunteering.

So, so - Even a smaller church can say, all right, here's another place that we can direct our resources to help out.

Yeah.

Fabulous.

Absolutely ab absolutely wonderful.

Well, Stephanie, thank you so, so much for being with us.

We're so happy that you came and shared all this information and all these exciting stories about volunteering at Emmanuel, and we wish you so much success in your future endeavors.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining us today.

It's a reminder that bears repeating.

No one achieves anything alone.

The world needs a helping hand.

The world needs you go out and make a difference.