The Veterans History Project

The Elks Lodges nationwide, as of September 2007, have selected The Veterans History Project (VHP) as their key project. John Schulz is the VHP program Chairman for Northern California Elks Lodges. John has taken this project to all the Northern California Elks Lodges this summer and has received tremendous acceptance For the program.

The mission of the VHP is to collect and archive the personal recollections of U.S. wartime veterans to honor their service and share their stories with current and future generations. The Project also collects stories from home front civilians who worked in support of our armed forces. These stories are video taped and archived by the Library of Congress and hopefully accessible via lnternet.

The Chico community students including: the Sea Cadets, Paradise and Chico High Schools, and Chico State College Students, would like to honor local Veterans by participating in this project. The students will attend a Library of Congress sponsored workshop. To further the quality of the interviewing and video taping process, Percy Ledbetter, a Butte College professor, has agreed to provide and operate video equipment once a month. Thus, giving us the option of videotaping the veteran interviews for the Library of Congress at our local Chico and Paradise Elks Lodges. Your willingness in allowing the area students to record your experience will have a major impact on the entire community, not to mention the nation.

We need Veterans willing to tell their story. In the local community, approximately 2000 students have interviewed 1200 veterans. Please join us In this important project by filling out the application located here, or call John Schulz at (530) 342-2881 or Kelly Molatore at (530) 321-8805 if you have further questions.