When a staff member of Hospice of Southern Maine called to see if Vet to Vet could find a volunteer to visit a Korean War veteran who was dying, she seemed not at all sure we could get anyone at such short notice. I had no such doubts. Within a […]
Veteran Stories
Vets Helping Vets
Gorham residents Jim Arcaro, Roger and Kathy Lavigne and Rob Sanford are reaching out to help other veterans through Vet2Vet Maine.
Vet to Vet Maine volunteers featured in Veterans Day articles
Volunteers from Vet to Vet Maine and their companions were featured in a series of articles in a Portland Press Herald Veterans Day special section on Nov. 8, 2020. You can read their stories below. Note: You may need a subscription to the Portland Press Herald in order to read […]
Team Unbroken: V2VME Volunteer Gretchen Evans Competes in The World’s Toughest Race
One of Vet to Vet Maine’s newest veteran volunteers, Gretchen Evans, will have a lot to talk about when she is matched to a veteran friend. Vet to Vet Maine recruits veterans to be volunteer companions to other veterans who need a friend. Currently the program has 80 volunteer […]
A Reason to Live
As a volunteer in the Vet to Vet program, Floyd visits an aging veteran once a week, providing companionship and becoming a dear friend to the veteran. His first assignment, Ed, had served in World War II and the Korean War. Nearly blind, unable to walk without assistance, and severely […]
200 Visits and Counting
York County veterans Eric Mihan and Vernon Huestis celebrated their 200th visit recently as participants in the Vet to Vet Maine program headquartered in Biddeford. The nonprofit organization matches veteran volunteers with fellow veterans who could benefit from visits from a friend. The volunteers visit their assigned veteran in the […]
Wish Granted—With Help from a Friend
March, 2017: Franklin Stover finally got his wish to see his wife’s grave, thanks to his Vet to Vet buddy, Jeff Reinold. Grace Stover died in June 2016. She is buried at the Southern Maine Veterans Cemetery in Springvale. Stover, an Army veteran who served in Germany in the late […]
Preserving Memories
August 2016—Vet to Vet participant Howard Rennie loves a good story. He tells how he once got trapped in the psychiatric ward of a New Jersey base hospital during the Korean War. He and three other soldiers had been assigned to wash floors in the ward while “recuperating” from hernia […]
Bill Nemitz: Veterans buddy up and bond
By Bill Nemitz Portland Press Herald September 10, 2014 Reprinted with permission The Vet to Vet program helps Maine veterans of all ages, stripes and uniforms help one another. Little did Ray Goulet know, back when he was a young Marine dodging enemy fire in the South Pacific, that he’d […]