Foundation comes up big for Vets Home bus

Veterans from the Montana Veterans Home will now have the chance to travel in a new passenger bus as the result of a fundraising effort that was pushed to its goal by the Whitefish Community Foundation.

Board members from the community foundation gathered at the Veterans Home on Thursday to present a Major Community Project Grant Award of $117,500 to complete efforts that will allow for the purchase a new 14-passenger wheelchair-accessible bus.

A check was presented to Bonnie Stutsman, veterans home activity director, and longtime veterans home volunteer Dianna Bennett, who this spring began the charge to raise $130,000 in funding for a new bus.

“It thought it might take six months or a year to raise this money,” Bennett said with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Bennett watched the strain that resulted when the home’s current bus was broken down last summer and that prompted her to begin her campaign.

“This is such an awesome facility that does so much for the veterans,” she said. “They do a lot of activities that are hard to do without a bus.”

Bennett raised $20,000 toward the effort, and the community foundation finished the fundraising after several of the its donors read about the campaign and decided the project had serious merit to put out a challenge to other donors within the foundation to raise the funds.

“While the Montana Veterans Home is not located in Whitefish, it fills a very important role for our community by serving veterans who have served all of us,” said Whitefish Community Foundation President Linda Engh-Grady.

She noted that the husband of one of Whitefish Community Foundation’s founders now lives in the home in Columbia Falls.

Vietnam veteran Gus Mariner rides the bus at least once a week to go shopping and said the current bus wasn’t ideal for getting around.

“It’s ratty and rickety,” he said. “It made a lot of noise and you bounced around. But it was the only transportation we had.”

Mariner said it’s “incredible” that folks would donate to help out the veterans home.

“We will have deluxe travel,” he said. “We would kind of like that around here. There is a lot of guys that have sacrificed a lot and they deserve it.”

Stutsman says the passenger bus is currently used at least once per week, and during the summer averages at least 12 outings per month. Veterans travel to Glacier National Park, to Kalispell for shopping, and visit the Whitefish VFW.

“They are very excited about this,” she said. “They make do with what we have, but to have the stability of a working bus is amazing.”

The new bus, Stutsman said, will include seating for three wheelchairs, extended seats for improved comfort, heating and air-conditioning, and a wheelchair ramp instead of a hydraulic lift, which was broken on the old bus.

Purchasing vehicles aren’t in the veterans home’s normal operating budget. It plans to keep the old bus as a backup and overflow vehicle for when more than one bus is needed.

The fundraising efforts for the new bus were kickstarted by the Whitefish VFW with a $5,000 donation, and the state VFW auxiliary also contributed $1,000.

Donors to the community foundation’s effort include Ardy and Steve Whisler, Janna and Jamie Shennan, Byrdie and Ken Wessels, Carol and Richard Atkinson, John Kramer, Bill and Betsy Bayne and an anonymous donor.

The community foundation’s grant programs have grown considerably as the result of its Circle of Giving, which also for major grants. Donors to the Circle give a minimum of $5,000 annually, with some giving as much as $40,000. The Major Community Project Grant Award to the Montana Veterans Memorial Foundation brings the number of major grants presented since the program began in 2010 to 15. The Community Foundation has awarded a total of $418,600 through the program.

For more information about the Whitefish Community Foundation, visit

www.whitefishcommunityfoundation.org or call 406-863-1781. The Whitefish Community Foundation is dedicated to fostering philanthropy, building endowments, and helping donors and nonprofits benefit the community.