VFW and Vermont American Help Sponsor Friday Night Steak Dinners for Wounded Soldiers
The Unmet Needs Program has donated enough money to help cover the costs of service and food one Friday night per month, over the next year.
WASHINGTON, DC-Enjoying a steak dinner at a favorite restaurant with family and friends on a Friday night is a fixture in American life. Hal Koster, part owner of Fran O'Brien's Steak House in Washington, D.C., understood this when he began a unique program about 1 1/2 years ago. Through his donation of time and money, as well as through the help of local donors, he initiated a program that gave wounded military personnel a chance to enjoy time away from the hospital-a few hours to enjoy a normal American Friday night meal and to escape the everyday reality of physical therapy and dealing with combat injuries.
Now supported in part by the VFW's Unmet Needs Program, a national program sponsored by Vermont American and designed to assist military families that run into financial difficulties, these dinners help begin to heal the mental and emotional scars of combat injuries and help reacquaint affected troops and their families with each other and the normalcy of every day life. The Unmet Needs Program has donated enough money to help cover the costs of service and food one Friday night per month, over the next year.