'Tropic’ like it’s hot | VFW Auxiliary ready to make waves at Luau Backyard Benefit March 25

There’s no place like home — except maybe the beach.

For some reason, life is always better in flip flops, especially when combined with sandy toes and a sun kissed nose.

But instead of traveling thousands of miles to Hawaii, you can get your own creative dose of Vitamin “sea” right here in Hood County with the VFW Auxiliary’s Annual Luau Benefit.

The Riley Stephens Memorial Post 7835 Auxiliary (Granbury VFW Auxiliary) will be presenting its 49th annual National Home Luau Backyard Benefit from 4-8:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 25 at 3670 W. Highway 377.

For almost 50 years, the Granbury VFW Auxiliary has been hosting a luau event with proceeds benefitting the VFW National Home in Eaton Rapids, Michigan.

“What they do is when a serviceman dies in combat, for their immediate family, the National Home provides some assistance for up to three years in housing, school clothes, any expenses they could possibly have for three years,” said VFW Auxiliary President Yolanda (Yogi) Jones. “The National Home has a house for every state on this property, and it's amazing. It gives me chills just thinking about it.”

According to the VFW National Home website, a 23-year-old woman named Amy Ross made it her mission in 1922 to help find jobs for thousands of unemployed veterans in Detroit. The news of Ross’s efforts reached millionaire cattleman Corey Spencer, who gifted 472 acres of land near Eaton Rapids, Michigan, to build on Ross’s vision of supporting veterans.

Since its founding, the VFW National Home has grown from an old frame farmhouse to a sprawling campus with playgrounds; park areas; and multiple buildings, including single-family homes, a community center and gymnasium, childcare facility, guest lodge, chapel, and administrative offices, according to the VFW National Home website.

“It's a fully self-sustaining community. Everything they need is right there,” said Joel Harney, Granbury VFW junior vice commander.

The Granbury VFW Auxiliary, the host of the luau event, is an organization consisting of military family members who support and assist the Granbury VFW Post, which is made up of veterans who served overseas.

“What's really neat about it is our officers are obviously combat veterans, and we're here to help them, but they come back and help us do what we got to do,” Jones said.

“Yogi says they're here to support us, but we're a family,” Harney said. “We're all together. We take care of each other. It's the only way it works. Everybody has a really good working relationship and that helps a lot.”

All proceeds from the luau celebration on March 25 will be donated to the VFW National Home. The four-hour event will include a full hog roast dinner, dessert bar, snacks of all kinds, live entertainment, Plinko door prizes, a bucket and live auction, chicken poop bingo, and more.

“(Chicken poop bingo) is a giant bingo card and people buy tickets based on the number and wherever the chicken poops, you win,” Harney said. “Believe it or not, it sounds weird, but it gets so many people involved and when you got 20 people standing around a cage yelling at a chicken (to poop, it’s hilarious).”

The event will also include a Kiss Your (Butt) booth that was originally going to feature a real donkey.

“So far, we're having trouble finding a donkey that is actually nice enough that will let strangers come up and actually kiss it,” said VFW Auxiliary Treasurer and Luau Coordinator Dawn Terry. “We may have to kind of rework it just a little bit. We'll still have the booth though.

“It just might be a paper donkey,” Jones chimed in.

“Or it might be an improper donkey,” Terry added. “It might have to be a mule, or a pony.”

For the first time ever, attendees can entertain the crowd by participating in a seahorse race.

“It will be set up as a cross between horse races and a board game with live people to go back and forth across on a seahorse,” Terry explained.

The event will also feature a Honey-Do auction, where local volunteers have agreed to be auctioned off to do various home and outdoor tasks for bidders.

A crowd favorite of the annual luau is the warrant roundups, where attendees can pay a dollar a minute to put their “suspect of choice” into jail.

“We have someone from the sheriff's department come out and it’ll interrupt the whole thing,” Jones said. “These officers in uniform will come to arrest somebody, cuff them, and put them in jail.”

“The big dignitary kind of people that get arrested, we have a big siren that goes off,” Terry added.

Awards will be presented during the luau for Teacher of the Year, Officer of the Year and Nurse of the Year. Several local first responders will also be recognized as well as district level winners for the Patriot Pen and Voice of Democracy scholarship entries, VFW 7835 volunteer awards, plus two new categories: Patriotic Youth and Patriotic Citizen of the Year.

“We were doing the (Ruck Forward 22K) and we leave here and we're walking down the road,” Jones said. “This lady comes by in a car, and she pulls into this house and a little bit later, she's standing outside with her American flag. It was crazy. She said ‘I saw y'all and I rushed home, ran upstairs, went to the attic, got my flag, and came back down the driveway.’ She was sitting there waiting for us to come by because she wanted to show her support. That right there, it was just very, very touching, so (Christy Peguero) is our recipient for the Patriotic Citizen of the Year.”

Jones said the recipient for the Patriotic Youth award is a seven-year-old boy from Plano who walked the entire ruck — a distance of 13.6 miles.

"Come to find out, he was named after our namesake here, Riley Stevens,” Yogi said. “His name is Joshua Riley (McLouth), so we picked him before I even knew who he was, which I thought was pretty neat.”

Additionally, Shirlee Frias, a representative from the VFW National Home, will be present at the event to explain the needs and mission of the organization as well as how donations will be spent.

“There will be entertainment,” Terry added, with a laugh. “It doesn't get boring.”

“The luau brings so much fun to so (many) people and it's all for a good cause; you can actually say that,” Jones added. “To hear the stories of these families that went through this and were put back on their feet because of donations is a really cool thing.”

Pre-sale tickets for the luau can be purchased for $18 by calling 817-658-5359.

For more information on VFW National Home, visit vfwnationalhome.org online. For more information on the Granbury VFW Post, visit vfw7835.org online.