News Posts List
Advocacy in Action—2024
04/23/2024
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Advocacy in Action—2024 Colonel Steve Bond, US Army-Retired |
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On April 17th, MOAA’s annual signature legislative event—Advocacy in Action or AiA--occurred on Capitol Hill. Team Florida was out in front to meet with our twenty-nine elected Congressional Representatives or their staffers in their Washington offices. The five Florida Teams were led by Florida Council Vice President, Steve Bond, John Murphy incoming Council Vice President, Pierre Louis—Council Legislative Affairs Chair, Tony LaVecchia—NE Florida Area Vice President, Dan Hill—Mid-Central Florida Area Vice President, and ably assisted by MOAA Board Members--Marc Oliveri, Rick Buchanan, and Mike Hewitt, and MOAA Virtual Chapter Representatives--Joe Gollasch and Stephanie Rose. Team Florida represented our thirty-eight chapters and all 38,000 MOAA Members in Florida. Our mission was to advocate for all veterans and their families to ensure the promises made to veterans are kept and to highlight MOAA’s strength in numbers.
Advocacy in Action started well before our team arrived on Capitol Hill. There were “Calls to Action” where MOAA’s 363,000 members were asked to TAKE ACTION by sending email messages or by calling their representatives to voice support for the issues. Proudly, Florida sent the most email messages through MOAA’s Legislative Action Center. There were over 1,700 messages from Florida alone of a total nationally of 6,750.
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Steve Bond (Left) and Rick Buchanan (Right) met with Congressman Posey, FL-8, Center in his Capitol Hill office to discuss passing the Richard Star Act, Restoring the active-duty housing allowance, BHA to 100%, and Protecting Tricare for Life. Congressman Posey was well versed and supportive of the three measures, largely due to the many emails he received from Cape Canaveral Chapter members |
The day on Capitol Hill was long and tiring (I logged over 15,000 steps or about six miles!) for meetings held in four of the congressional office buildings on Capitol Hill. Lt Gen Brian Kelly (USAF, Ret), MOAA President and CEO commented after the event--“It is days like today that show the strength of what MOAA can do… The power of this organization is our ability to marshal our members to speak with one voice.”
It was exciting to be part of the AiA efforts on Capitol Hill and see the firsthand results of our collective advocacy efforts. I was proud to be a MOAA member, making a difference and protecting the earned benefits for all veterans and their families! However, our work is not done. We need all our members to participate in Advocacy in Action this year, and every year. If you have not done so, we need you to TAKE ACTION. Register and contact our elected representatives by going to this link: https://moaa.quorum.us/.
Legislative Advocacy is MOAA’s primary mission and one way we show we “Never Stop Serving”!
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