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Women Veterans Resource Fair returns this Saturday to raise awareness, build bonds

Canton Repository - 7/15/2021

The Stark County Veterans Service Commission will hold its Women Veterans Resource Fair to raise awareness for oft-overlooked female veterans and connect them with services.

The event, in its third year, will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the MAPS Air Museum near the Akron-Canton Airport in Green.

More: More space for veterans services

The event will feature representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs and several dozen other organizations like the Women Veterans Network, Blue Star Mothers and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Other vendors focus on post-traumatic stress disorder and therapy like Warrior Beat, Pegasus Farms and Project Healing Waters. Other organizations that are not specifically focused on the military like Community Legal Aid and Kent State University at Stark will also attend.

In a first for the event, the Stark County Recorder’s Office will be on hand to make veterans I.D. cards.

Childcare will be provided.

Growth of women veterans events in Stark County

The commission’s executive director, De Ann Williams, said that the idea for the resource fair came to her after she was at a VA clinic and someone reading her name off a piece of paper called her “Mr. Williams," wrongly assuming that as a veteran she must be a man.

“Unfortunately, as a female veteran, whenever I step into an environment where there are veterans, I’m usually looked at as the spouse of a veteran or the caregiver of a veteran,” she said.

From that experience, Williams, who served for 23 years in the Army and Navy Reserve across three continents, decided to put together the resources fair to raise awareness for her fellow female veterans.

On short notice, the commission launched the fair in the summer of 2018 at American Legion Post 221 in Massillon.

Thirty-six women veterans turned out for the event, which was so successful, Williams said, the commission decided to make it an annual tradition. The next year, 47 women veterans showed up.

After the pandemic canceled what would have been the event’s third installment, the commission started receiving calls in the spring from service providers and veterans inquiring whether the fair would be back.

Williams was please to tell them it would be.

The executive director said that women veterans are encouraged to bring along their male veteran friends and family as well, because many of the services are not specific to women.

Stark veterans speak about fair benefits

Janet Dorety, 67, served in the Army from 1972 to 1975 driver and typist. She also did recruitment work.

Dorety joined the army shortly after graduating high school.

"I had a young pretty face and blonde curly hair like Shirley Temple,” Dorety remembered with a chuckle. “I got a lot of attention, a lot of propositions and a lot of trouble.”

But since she left the service few people seem to pay attention to the fact that she is veteran.

“Maybe if we had a banner on us that said we’re a veteran we might get recognition,” she said.

That changed when Dorety attended the resource fair in 2018.

“I was surprised. Every table I attended everyone wanted to thank me and ask me what I did in the service and how I liked it and what I learned from it,” she said. “It was overwhelming all the responses I got from people who didn’t know about women in the service.”

Dorety is planning a trip back to the fair this weekend.

Williams said that beyond raising awareness and providing resources, the fair allows women veterans to meet each other and connect.

The executive director recalled how a group of younger Marine Corps women veterans bonded with a fellow Marine who had served decades earlier at the 2018 fair, taking photos with each other and posting them on social media.

“When we are in uniform, we stand out,” Williams said. “But when we’re out of uniform, we’re very invisible.”

Reach Alexander at 330-580-8342 or amthompson@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Women Veterans Resource Fair returns this Saturday to raise awareness, build bonds

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