Post 7804 celebrates golden

Ray Risk, commander-in-chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, announced the award of a Golden Anniversary citation to VFW Post 7804, Posen. The post celebrated its 50th anniversary Sunday with 30 members, including six charter members, coming together for a picnic.

Posen veterans as well as auxiliary members spent part of the second day of summer, a day with temperatures at 80-plus, doing what post members have done for the first five decades ? reminiscing and enjoying camaraderie. In issuing the citation to post commander Jerry Donajkowski, Risk congratulated all the members of Post 7804 for the outstanding record they have achieved of service to the community, the veterans and to the nation over the past 50 years. ?We thought June would be a nice time to pay tribute to the charter members of the post,? said Donajkowski. Each charter member was given an individual certificate.

DONAJKOWSKI, A VETERAN of the Vietnam war, says the post is enjoying some of its greatest success, boasting nearly 100 members. This includes veterans from World War II through the first Desert Storm conflict. He said service personnel in the Iraq war haven?t signed up, because most are still over there.

Donajkowski said the 96 members are an active group, whether it?s organizing the Voice of Democracy competition or collecting funds for student scholarships. The veterans also put on the roof of the now closed Posen Clinic in 1986. They once hosted a run, but interest tapered and the event was discontinued. The charter of 1953 was signed by 30 members and was on display Sunday.

THE 10 LIVING charter members are Mark Misiak, Valentine Donajkowski, Robert Polaski, Walter Ponikiewski, Ralland Miller, Leonard Wozniak, John Momrik, Al Momrik, Harry Smigelski, and Frank Kozdron. After establishment of the post on June 7, 1953, meetings over the first eight years were conducted in a building that was located directly behind the Memorial on Mich

igan Avenue (M-65), under the leadership of the post?s first commander, Art Wozniak. The current building was constructed in 1961, with a bar addition being constructed in 1988.

The building, located at the west end of the village in clear view of the new water tower, hosts the Head Start preschool program, and is available to the community for rental for parties.

ON MEMORIAL DAY, Posen veterans are invited every year for a meal, after participating in tributes at three cemeteries: St. Casimir, St. Dominic, and St. Paul?s. When a veteran dies, the post also is opened for breakfast on the day of the funeral.

Post 7804 joins a growing list of VFW Posts whose long association with the organization have made it the most successful major veterans group in the country. VFW has a membership of 1.86 million men and women in more than 9,000 posts around the world.

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