FULL TEXT OF TESTIMONY
1. Kristin Gilpatrick, president,
Soldiers Home Foundation, Inc.
2. Laura Rinaldi - VA Employee and Chairperson, Reclaiming Our Heritage>
FROM Kristin Gilpatrick, president,
Soldiers Home Foundation, Inc.
The Soldiers Home Foundation is very excited to be at this public hearing about a 40-year, sole-source of the 1889 Chapel, 2 acres of surrounding ground, and Building 16. We are more than ready to start our plans to restore and reopen the heart and literal soul of the National Soldiers Home Historic District, so it can again serve veterans and the community.
We are eager to open the Chapel and its neighboring Building 16 home:
- So veterans can again have funerals in the shadow of the National Cemetery,
- So veterans—most especially homeless veterans and veterans in need—can find solace and comfort, counseling and critical referral services through the comfortable portal of the chapel’s welcoming doors. A homeless veteran and veteran services referral center will be part of a reopened chapel and staffed by Milwaukee County Veteran Service office, VA chaplains, and other credible counseling services and programs.
- So VA and visiting chaplains have an alternative site for services, counseling and meeting with veterans,
- So, groups that support veteran healing as well as Soldiers Home history have a place to meet,
- So veterans and the larger community can meet for educational, historic and social events – including nondenominational services, historic programs, weddings, wedding renewals, and other celebrations
- So Chapel and Soldiers Home history is preserved and furthered in historic displays, and programs, and
- So the Foundation has a point from which it can continue its mission to “protect, preserve and further the history and veteran legacy of the National Soldiers Home Historic District.”
The Chapel is not only one of the richest depositories of Soldiers Home history and veteran legacy, it is also the district buildings most desperately in need of repair. The Foundation will not just repair it; however, we will restore it to National Register of Historic Places standards.
Thanks to $1.37 million in already-approved National Park Service tax credits, as well as a fundraising plan that includes grant and donation funds contingent upon obtaining a lease, the Foundation is prepared to begin Phase I of restoration—the roof and tower. Phase I plans are the only one of 3 projected phases to be submitted to and approved by the National Park Service and state historic preservation office. Tower and roof restoration would begin following lease negotiations and, of course, a Section 106, National Preservation Act hearing by the state for this first (and every phase).
Upon approval of a lease, the Foundation can move forward into planning subsequent phases—exterior and interior and Building 16.
The Foundation will also move forward in developing the details of its chapel business and operational plans—to be developed through input from operational partners (including VA chaplains, veterans and historic groups, and Milwaukee County Veterans Services), as well as stakeholders, our members and interested groups and individuals.
We will restore and reopen this Chapel—to aid and comfort veterans and serve the larger community—just as those who built it did in 1889 … together.
Presented By: Kristin Gilpatrick, president
Soldiers Home Foundation, Inc.
STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF CHAPEL LEASE TO SOLDIERS HOME FOUNDATION
6/17/08
I am Laura Rinaldi, long time VA employee, and Chairperson of the Reclaiming Our Heritage event held annually on our VA grounds.
For the past eight years, our mission has been to make the community more aware of who and what VA is today, and what The National Soldiers Home was 140 years ago. I think we can say with certainty that we’ve taken great strides toward accomplishing that mission. Thousands more are now aware of the treasure that is hidden here in plain view. Many of these people now want to help. I’d like to give you a few examples:
One of our reenactment units that has been with us since our very humble beginnings was told early on that while we invited them to march all day in the hot sun, with few amenities, and toil long into the evening doing cemetery tours, we were unable to give any “bounties” for their participation – something that is very typical at other such events. They provided no comment and went about their business – then presented the Foundation with a $1,500 check at the end of the event to be used toward Chapel restoration, saying only that they were grateful that we allowed them to participate in the efforts to preserve this very sacred place.
Fast forward a couple of years to January 2007. On a very cold Thursday morning, I received a phone call from the Foundation President, indicating that they were ready to move forward with asbestos abatement in the Chapel, but to save some money, everything in the interior had to be moved out by volunteers. We put out one email to our ROH Committee and to several partner groups. Less than 48 hours later, 54 people showed up to accomplish the work. Those people included the ROH Committee, the Soldiers Home Foundation, Veterans, Sons of Union Veterans and their auxiliary, reenactors, VA employees and VA Volunteers. Many of those people are here tonight.
I believe we have proven time and time again that we are not only passionate about this project, but we’ve backed up that passion with hard physical labor, and with our personal financial support to the Foundation.
I believe that the Soldiers Home Foundation has earned the right to be recognized as a preservation partner, but they cannot continue in any effective manner without a long-term lease.
I would like to commend VA and the Foundation for coming this far in this process. Let the work begin in earnest, before passions die out, or potential donors lose interest. We could become a national example of what can happen when the right people focus on the same goal. This is a common goal.
The voices of 37,000 veterans buried in the sacred grounds of Wood National Cemetery, many of whom passed through those Chapel doors for their final services, cannot speak here tonight. They would be dismayed at the current condition of their Home Chapel.
Please let the work begin, get the paperwork signed and delivered at your very earliest convenience
We anxiously await your response. Thank you.
Presented by: Laura Rinaldi, chairperson
Reclaiming Our Heritage
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