Adam Renteria, President of VetNet Student Veterans Group, providing outreach at a local community college.
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A Note From the VetNet Student President
- On the weekend of 17 - 19 April, 2009, I attended the Student Veterans of America national conference in San Francisco. The SVA is a national umbrella non - profit organization that emcompasses individual student veteran organizations on college campuses. There were 200 student veterans from all around the country representing 150 different schools. California had representatives from 30 schools such as San Diego State, Chico State, San Francisco State, USC, UC San Diego, UC Berkely, and from the Big West we had me from Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Irvine.
On Saturday we began with a presentation from Keith Wilson, the Director of Educational Affairs for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He and his panel discussed the new Post 9-11 GI Bill. They provided a timeline in which the process is going to begin. They will start accepting applicaitons on 1 May. On 6 July the VA begins accepting enrollment certificate from the schools and processing claims. The VA will pay tuition and fees to school on 3 Aug as well as the book stipend to the student. Partial BAH will be distributed on 1 Sep with the full amount to be paid directly to the student on 1 Oct.
The biggest anouncement from Mr. Wilson was that students who have already exhausted their 36 months of Ch. 30 benefits have an additional 12 months of Ch. 33 benefits. These 12 months come from the Voc Rehab benefit and the loophole is that there is no stipulation that prohibits the student from using Ch. 33 instead of Voc Rehab.
The next session on Saturday we gathered as a national organization in a townhall format with the executive board of SVA. We discussed issues that each chapter faces on their campus and how the SVA can provide assistance to help grow these SVOs. The three main national issues that we discussed were resources for one-stop shop veterans resource centers, transitional assistance into academia in regards to mental health and culture shock, and campus awareness of the veteran community.
After our national townhall gathering, we broke into regions. As every other state participated within their own region, California was to large and had to break down into to Northern and Southern California. In So Cal, we represented the largest percentage of SVA membership. There we discussed how to build our own campus SVO's. San Diego State is leading the way in SVO participation from student veterans. Ideas we shared were SVO community service in terms of providing services to campus community and building relationships with other organizations on and off campus, publicity and promoting our organizations to motivate veterans to participate in SVOs, veteran housing, first response to mental health issues of veterans, study skills, and peer mentorship.
Finally, we had an awesome banquet with our keynote speaker, General Michael Lehnert. We had a productive conference and the SVA is growing rapidly. There is a new wave of veterans coming home and going to school. These veterans are motivated and successful. I expect the next conference to be larger than this one.
Here at Long Beach State, we look to lead the way as we build our Veterans Network. We are working diligently to build our organization and ensure that every veteran who decides to attend school earns a baccalaureate degree. Our mission is to provide service to student veterans and the campus community. We are excited, dedicated and growing at a rapid pace. Thank you very much for your consistently dedicated support for our community of student veterans.
p.s. here is the website to the SVA http://www.studentveterans.org/
God Bless,
Adam Renteria
VetNet@csulb.edu
VetNet Outreach
- Thursday, 13 November, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, Long Beach City College Veterans Affairs office invites VetNet to setup a table with other agencies. They are hoping to provide our veteran population with information from different sources an in turn make them aware of all the agencies that are out there to help them. The event will be held in the lawn area between buildings D and E. We hope that you are able to make it. Please RSVP with Danielle Panto at dpanto@lbcc.edu - 562-938-3932 or with me at the information below.
- Tuesday, 18 November, 12:30 to 2:00 pm between LA 2 and 3 buildings. VetNet and Veterans University will participate in the Peace Conference discussions here at LBSU. Join us if you can!
- Thursday, 20 November, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at El Camino College. VetNet is looking for two LBSU student veterans to meet with El Camino College studetn during their Veterans Fair. VetNet must RSVP by 11 Nov. POC for this event is Steve Shaw @ VetNet@csulb.edu
