Department of Washington American Legion Children & Youth

On Wednesday, 1 April 2009, PBS will air a program by Sesame Street entitled “Coming Home”, This DVD deals with children and other family members who are having a hard time excepting one of the parents coming back from the was either mentally distressed, missing one of their limbs. During the week of Mar 23 to 30 Mar 2009 there will be a sneak preview presented to all interested people in a National Guard Armory around the state.  Anyone is welcome.  It is a good program for the entire family.

They may be Children today; however these children are our leaders of tomorrow.  How do we want these children to run our government whether as a citizen or a legislator?  Do you want them to have patriot ideas, do you want them to know that there is other ways to do things other then sitting back and do nothing.  Do you want them to go and do things that could possibly kill them from the lack of training? 

We hear a lot in the news of our local newspapers that kids have nowhere to go or nothing for them to do during their school breaks and in the summer vacation months. What better time for a Legion Post to start a program that will take in the children of your community. 

We all have professionals in our communities that would be more than happy to help you put on a safety seminar or training classes to teach and instruct the younger generation.  There is EMTs, Fire departments, Police and Sheriff  Departments, Drug Counselors, Teenage suicide counselors, etc.  

This year we will be concentrating on all Children & Youth programs.  Trying to re-vitalize interest in all Post throughout the Department.  To do this we will try going to each District and giving training seminars on how to go about doing these programs and bringing the help of the community. 

We now have the National Guard working with us on Children & Youth programs.  Do not wait for a National guard unit to come to you.  There is a Memorandum of Understanding between the NGB and our National Headquarters that these two organizations do have Children programs that are similar to ours and that we should work together to promote all.  The National Guard is going to be spreading the word about our Boys State Program and our Constitutional Speech Contest