Southtowns Record

Town Board agenda packet — October 20, 2026

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Town of Aurora
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Town Board
Meeting
Oct 20, 2026
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Charles Snyder

From:  Mannion, Benjamin <[email protected]>
Sent:  Thursday, October 8, 2026 2:18 PM
To:  Supervisor
Subject:  Office of Veterans' Services outreach  S-2

Good afternoon Supervisor Snyder,

Martha asked me to reach out to you and give you some more information about the services that our office
provides and what we would need to conduct an outreach event.

Out office, consisting of four veteran's services officers accredited by the American Legion, primarily assists
veterans in filing for VA disability compensation and veteran's pensions. We also help veteran's dependents
  and
survivors apply for survivors' benefits, as well as providing information on other benefits and resources available
  to
veterans and their families. We use town outreach events like this to make contact with veterans who might not be
able to make it to our office downtown and to get the word out about the services that we provide.

We currently conduct monthly outreach events with Amherst/Williamsville and Evans, and we're scheduled
  to
start monthly outreach with Holland later this month, as well.

On the day of the outreach, one of our veterans’ services officers (very likely myself} would set up at the town hall
in any spare conference room or classroom you might have available. That way we have a table to work on and
some measure of privacy for vets to discuss the issues they're facing with us.

| would plan on staying at the town hall from opening until closing with a short break for lunch. | have a small
rolling case of VA forms and informational pamphlets that | would bring along that has information for where vets
can seek out resources they may need, and I can also help vets get their claims started on-site.

We're just looking for one day per month at this point, preferably on a Thursday so it does not conflict with our
other outreach efforts. Our office does have its own Facebook page for publicizing the event, but we would also
ask that your town share information (via Facebook or whatever platforms you use) about the outreach event in
advance of the day to help us spread the word about it. We prefer that vets reach out to our office ahead of the
event to schedule an appointment time with us, but we can also handle walk-ins too. Attendance at our past
outreach events varies from a few vets to well over a dozen throughout the day, so having appointments scheduled
beforehand would allow the services officerto space out the vets they help and ensure that each person who
stops by gets their undivided attention.

That's our organization and outreach event in a nutshell, but if there are any questions that you have please let me
know. If you decide that you would like to have us visit, | can send you digital versions of our office's pamphlet for
you to post on Facebook or the town's website with our office's contact information so your residents can call and
schedule appointments with us in advance. Thank you so much for your time and consideration and | hope to hear
from you soon.

Respectfully,

Ben Mannion

Benjamin E. Mannion | Assistant Service Officer
Erie County | Office of Veterans’ Services
95 Franklin St., Room 800 | Buffalo, NY 14202