American Legion Post 163 in Crossville is launching new Legion Riders and Sons of the American Legion units as the organization celebrates 100 years of continuous service to veterans and the community.
Charles Loveday serves as the historian at American Legion Post 163 in Crossville. The organization requires members to have served in a military branch, leaving family members looking for alternative ways to participate in local outreach efforts.
“Because we have people that want to become part of that,” Loveday said. “Especially the Sons of American Legion. A lot of these sons support the American Legion and their fathers were in the military, but they have not been in the military and but they still want to be active and support it.”
The post previously attempted to start a Legion Riders chapter around the time the COVID pandemic began, but the effort failed due to a lack of support, Loveday said. Recently, enough men and women in Cumberland County have shown interest to sustain both the motorcycle group and the Sons of the American Legion unit, Loveday said.
“I think the Legion Riders will give us a lot of publicity and people to come in and help support our programs and our activities that we do,” Loveday said. “And I think the Sons of American Legion will sort of be a very good support group for the American Legion as because most of us in the American Legion are, well, there’s very few members of our American Legion that’s probably under the age of 60 that’s active.”
Community members interested in joining the new units or the existing Ladies Auxiliary can attend monthly gatherings to learn more. The post hosts a free coffee and donut social every third Thursday, as well as regular meetings on the third Saturday of each month.
“Well, the easiest way to do that is just attend, come to one of our functions or our meetings and then talk with the veterans,” Loveday said. “That’s the easiest way to do it.”
Over the past century, the Crossville post has supported local youth activities, provided food boxes for needy veterans, and backed the Cumberland County Veteran Service organization. Looking ahead, the post is organizing groups to visit shut-in veterans in nursing homes and working to expand the Milo Lemert Festival, an event honoring a local Medal of Honor winner.
“Right now, we’ve got a group that we’ve just started a group to go around and visit veterans that maybe are shut in or maybe are in nursing homes that don’t have people to visit them,” Loveday said. “And even in the home, they make home visits to veterans and get more involved with people like that in get known, you know, as far as that goes.”