The American Legion was chartered by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic, mutual-help, war-time veterans organization. A community-service organization which now numbers nearly 3 million members -- men and women -- in nearly 15,000 American Legion Posts worldwide. These Posts are organized into 55 Departments -- one each for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, France, Mexico, and the Philippines.
The American Legion's national headquarters is in Indianapolis ,Indiana, with additional offices in Washington, DC. In addition to thousands of volunteers serving in leadership and program implementation capacities in local communities to the Legion's standing national commissions and committees, the national organization has a regular full-time staff of about 300 employees.
«ABOUT THE AMERICAN LEGION«
The American Legion is the nation’s largest veterans organization. The 2002 current national membership tally – roughly 2.8 million – is higher than the year-end totals for 1954 through 1986.
The American Legion extended its service in communities across the country through the development of 70 new revitalized posts from January 2002 to October 2002.
The American Legion attracts younger veterans. Active-duty members are eligible to join – and they are joining. In fact, The American Legion has about 181,000 members who joined under the Persian Gulf, Lebanon/Grenada and Panama War periods of eligibility. Today’s active duty service members continue to join. The American Legion created a program known as “Reconnect” as an opportunity for its members to interact with the total force – active duty, National Guard and Reserve.
The American Legion created a task force especially designated to assist Persian Gulf Veterans, more than 3,000 individuals and their families have received direct compensation and needed support through this service provided by The American Legion.
«SERVING THE COMMUNITY«
Donated more than 3.3 million hours of service to communities.
Post Service Officers handled more then 254,000 cases of veterans seeking benefits and just compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Devoted more than 1.5 million hours of volunteer service to Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.
Donated more than 96,000 pints of blood to collection centers nationwide, making The American Legion the nations single largest instructional blood donor
Annually spends nearly 30 million on programs benefiting children and youth.
« Awarded nearly 14,000 medals to Junior ROTC students
« Sponsored nearly 24,500 American Legion Boys State delegates
« Sponsored nearly 2,400 Scouting units serving 70,000 youngsters.
« Sponsored more than 5,200 American Legion Baseball teams and an additional 2,400 youth baseball squads.
« Awarded more than 6 million in college scholarships to deserving students.
For more information follow the links to National Headquarters and Department of Minnesota
Join POST 489 by printing, filling out and mailing in the MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
Sorry no online application at this time.
