Napa Elks Lodge hosts more than 100 veterans for dinner celebration
Veterans from California State Veterans Home – Yountville were honored at the Napa Elks Lodge on Wednesday night, continuing the celebration of Veterans Day as well as a long-held Napa tradition.
For decades, the local Elks Lodge has hosted a complimentary dinner for veteran members of the lodge and invited guests from the Yountville home. This event dwindled in size following the COVID-19 pandemic, with just a handful of lodge members attending over the past few years.
An internal team at the Elks Lodge launched a sponsorship drive with asks that were personal, one-on-one and face-to-face, encouraging Elks to host a veteran. The cost: $28 to sponsor a veteran for the dinner.
Inspired by a longtime member of the lodge who anonymously sponsored 35 dinners, Elks Lodge Camp host and bar manager Gay Gagne set a goal of bringing in 10 sponsors on her own.
“My family and friends agreed to sponsor eight in a matter of moments, and then Eric Keffer from Cole’s Chop House, who is a member of this lodge, pledged to sponsor 25 veterans when I had asked him to sponsor just one,” said Gagne, who collects many of the donations for such fundraisers. “I closed three more for a total of 36 on my own. I believe that Elks care and share in good old-fashioned challenges among friends and family, especially when other people benefit.”
The result? With lodge members and special guests combined, more than 100 veterans attended this year. Two large luxury busses, as well as a smaller passenger bus, arrived from Yountville early in the evening, delivering more than 75 veterans, assistant nurses and recreational directors from the Veterans Home.
The mood was joyful. Visiting veterans, as well as veteran members of the lodge, were welcomed by Elks including officers and current Exalted Ruler Karen Whitecotton. After being greeted at the door, the veterans were guided to hosted tables to spend the evening socializing, sharing a meal and storytelling. Snippets of war stories, plenty of laughs and proud reports of military length of service, could be heard around the room.
Adding to the evening’s warmth, guests enjoyed the menu of home-cooked comfort foods—fried chicken, meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, and an array of sides and desserts prepared by the lodge culinary team of chefs Stephanie Jones and Spencer Blunt.
Veterans Home recreation therapist Janette Eubank, who has been with the home since 1999, said she has worked to get veterans to this event in the past, adding that this is the first time in a long time that both licensed care (residents who live in the hospital) and independent care veterans were able to attend.
“It was quite an undertaking” to get the busloads of veterans down to the Napa, she said, describing it as a “crazy dance.”
Eubank said, “This is a big deal for our vets to get out, especially for licensed care residents. We have the older generation, and it’s nice for them to get out.”
VIP veterans attending the event included 102-year-old Bob Heiss, who served in World War II and has lived at the Veterans Home for 17 years. He first attended the veterans dinner in 2008.
“That’s true that I will be 103 in December,” Heiss said, explaining that he served in England and Europe and visited Paris on the weekends.
Whitecotton concluded the evening by welcoming a member of each branch of the service, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, to hold a flag while members of that branch of service were recognized, culminating with the POW/MIA flag.
Finally, a member of the Elks Lodge sent the veterans off with a live version of Taps.
All photos by Lisa Adams Walter
