Montana Tech Yellow Ribbon

In January of 2011 sixty community leaders from Red Lodge attended a presentation by the US National Guard. By the end of the presentation, four of them had already decided to put a plan into action and make Red Lodge Montana’s first Yellow Ribbon Community. The original steering committee consisted of John Toler, Glory Mahan, Hank Tuell, and Warene Wall. Since that time, the group has grown to include a much larger area, and been renamed the Carbon and Stillwater counties Yellow Ribbon Community. The current steering committee members are Warene Wall, Glory Mahan, Steven Vale, and one other member will be joining soon.

We’ve all seen the yellow ribbons on bumpers all over the place, but what does “yellow ribbon community” mean? The steering committee oversees smaller working groups consisting of: medical, lodging and merchants, youth and education, public safety and judicial, faith-based, finance, and employment. These groups work to provide emergency and short-term assistance to past and present service members and their families. This assistance may come in the form of helping to pay rent or utilities, vehicle repairs, putting minutes on a cell phone, temporary housing, job referrals, help with prescription drug costs, and a number of other things. “If a veteran is not in the VA system, we can help them do that, ” says steering committee member Warene Wall. “Many older veterans – WWII and such – never got into that system because they didn’t need assistance when they first got back. Now that they’re older they may need a bit more help.”

Montana currently houses 100, 000 veterans, with another 8, 126 expected to return home to Montana in the next few years. Some of the younger returning veterans may need assistance with financial planning for a new family, as well as job referrals, searching for a new home, or simply getting reintegrated into their community. Yellow Ribbon works as an umbrella for a lot of different veteran service organizations. Their goal is to network with as many others as possible to provide whatever services might be necessary. They work with many organizations to provide a referral to get the best help possible for every situation.