ALTAMONT — One-hundred years ago this month, “a meeting of all ex-servicemen” was held “for the purpose of discussing the aims and advantages of the American Legion.”

Held Nov. 20, 1924, in Enterprise Hall, the once and current home of The Altamont Enterprise, the meeting was the first of Altamont’s “Helderberg” Post.

“There was considerable enthusiasm shown,” The Enterprise reported the day after the charter meeting, “and the boys all enjoyed the excellent talks given by” a group of local dignitaries. “Considerable enthusiasm” is expected once again as Helderberg Post 977 is due to celebrate its centennial with a formal dinner on Nov. 3. 

The official title given to the post in 1924 was Helderberg Post No. 977, the paper reported at the time. 

The serviceman chosen to lead the post was Harry Gaige, a corporal in the 51st Pioneer Infantry Regiment who served from May 1917 to July 1919 and spent the period between August 1918 and July 1919 overseas. He is the grandfather of current post commander James Gaige, himself an Army and Navy veteran who’s served in one manner or another for nearly half a century.

When he left bootcamp in 1972, Gaige had thought he was heading to Germany with a battalion that did end up in Vietnam, but, because of a ticket mix-up, he landed in Kentucky, where he served until 1974. Then, 16 years following his discharge, Gaige enlisted in the Navy, serving as a reservist in its Construction Battalion, known as the Seabees. Gaige’s son, Lucas, is serving full-time as a Seabee electrician. 

Post 977

The purpose of the Legion is to serve veterans, their families, and the community, it’s “in our constitution and bylaws,” Gaige said, and Altamont does it better than most. 

“So, we here in Altamont, we’re a small post,” Gaige said. Post 977 has about 100 Legionnaires, but what makes it unusual is it isn’t just a handful of members doing all the work, which can be a rather common problem in service-based volunteer organizations. 

And it’s not just Legionnaires pitching in; there are the dozens and dozens of grandmothers, mothers, sisters, and spouses who make up Altamont’s Auxiliary. Then there are the Sons of the American Legion, a program that allows the sons and grandsons of veterans to be a part of the organization; Post 977  has about 70 Sons, Gaige said. About two-thirds of Altamont’s Legion Riders are non-veterans, Gaige said.

The Post 977 Legion Riders, Gaige said, formed about 12 years ago, and has been “a big shot in the arm for us.” Altamont started with 13 riders in 2012, Gaige said; that number is now up to 60.

The first Legion Riders chapter formed in Michigan about 30 years ago, born from the simple “idea to start a motorcycle enthusiasts association within the organization,” according to the group’s official history, but has grown far beyond the story of its origin, in recent years having banded together to form honor guards to protect the funerals of service members from protestors. 

“By organizing the American Legion Riders here,” Gaige said, “we’ve definitely increased our veteran side of the house [as well as] our Sons of the Legion side of the house, which gave us some really amazing members.”

Gaige said, “Our post is a little bit different than a lot of posts  — and I’ve traveled all over the place and visited [both] Legions and VFWs,” and what often happens, “and I don't know why,” Gaige said, he is asked what makes Post 977 so successful. 

He’s  straightforward in his assessment.

“They don’t have that same, I don’t know, stick-to-itiveness, the glue that holds the organization together; we work together.”

Gaige said, “When we put on a dinner, we all put on a dinner. When we do our poker run, we all do the poker run. Breakfast, we all do it. When it comes to maintaining the building, we all do it.” That, Gaige said, “is our formula for success here.”

Service 

Altamont has had several transfers from other posts, Gaige said, because those often larger posts don’t really lean into the service part of being a service organization. 

“I mean, we do things for the kids,” Gaige said; at Christmas, the Legion donates thousands of dollars worth of presents to local schools. “We also used to do a Christmas thing, and then the VFW took that over, which was great,” Gaige said. “So now we do a Halloween thing.” 

Also at Christmas, Gaige said Post 977  donates “thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes down there: winter clothes, socks, underwear, food” to Veterans Affairs. Then there are the ongoing donations to the Altamont and Guilderland food pantries, the bloodmobile, and Little League sponsorships. 

To help veterans, their families, and broader community, Gaige said the Legion has a service officer who helps “guys figure out how they can, first and number one, get in the door of the VA as a veteran and what services are available .…” Post 977 helps “as many people as we can that way.” Gaige said. 

In other instances, for example, “Somebody says, ‘Hey, so-and-so, he’s a Korean War veteran.’ He’s got to move out of his house” and into an apartment. 

“Say no more. We’re there,” Gaige said. “We’ve got trailers and trucks.”

Helping with moving, Gaige said, is something “people keep hearing more and more about.”

Then there are times when “people come to us, not even our members,” and ask for help with paying for housing or a heating bill. Gaige said Altamont is able to do a lot for these people because a number of members work in fields where they “can get answers for people.”

One thing the Legion doesn’t do is hand out cash.

For example, Gaige said a member saw something in the news about a family losing their home to fire. “In our bylaws, we will donate $250 automatically,” Gaid said, but not $250 in bills; instead the Legion will put up $250 for a hotel room or groceries or clothes. 

“We don’t give out money because you don’t know where that’s going to go,” he said. “And I’m not trying to be mean to anybody, but that’s the way of life.”

Post 977 has spent as much as $10,000 on an individual family, Gaige said, and while it’s quite a hit to the Legion’s bank account, “when you get a husband and wife come in here with their two little girls and sit here and tell you their story, it’s heartbreaking.”

But before Post 977 handed over a nickel, it asked the potential recipients to bring in whatever bills they may have had, Gaige said, because “we’re going to scrutinize the way you live. I mean, we had some people in here that were paying more money on their cable bill than they were paying for their heat bill.”

It was “totally ridiculous,” he said. 

So, in addition to monetary help with bills, Gaige said the Legion will work with recipients on a plan. “We got one guy that’s really good with budgets,” Gaige said, “and he’ll sit down with the family and show them how they can save money and distribute their earnings.”

Post 977 is able to help in different ways, Gaige said, because “we have a little bit of everything.” The Legion counts among its membership lawyers, finance types, a buyer for Price Chopper with 30 years experience and “connections,” former members of law enforcement, mechanics, plumbers, and carpenters.

“We’ve got one gentleman who works for the Catholic Church,” Gaige said. “He has a lot of contacts, and he helps us out if we need,” for example, “to buy a refrigerator for somebody.”

Then there’s an Auxiliary member who’s done tax work her entire adult life, Gaige said, so if “somebody’s having problems with their taxes, she’ll sit down with them and do the best she can for free.”

Post 977 has even “found a couple of jobs for people,” Gaige said. “They weren’t just sweeping floors. They were decent jobs.”

Money 

The Legion is able to offer many of its  services to the community in ways other than dollars and cents and isn’t prone to spend frivolously when it comes to its own funds, but the reality is Post 977 has expenses to deal with.

“So that’s where our fundraisers come into play,” Gaige said, almost 88 percent of the Legion’s 2023 revenue, about $38,650, came from fundraising. 

The organization ended last year about $12,000 in the red, with revenues of approximately $44,150 and expenses of a little over $56,000, according to its 2023 tax return.

The Legion Riders fared better than the Legion itself in 2023, taking in close to $80,000, about 81 percent of which came by way of contributions, while expending about $77,000, according to its tax return.

When he joined the Legion in the mid-’70s, Gaige said, the organization was basically sustained through bingo, while the Auxiliary would raise funds with breakfast and dinner events. “And I can remember a lot of times at the meeting, the Auxiliaries would have to pay our oil bill because we had no money.”

Recently, perhaps the best-known/most-controversial Legion fundraiser is its gun raffle. “I know a lot of people are opposed. ‘You literally give away a gun,’” Gaige said, parroting an anti-gun raffler, while noting the winner has to be eligible to receive the prize. 

He said the Legion makes “a good amount of money at those gun raffles”; it isn’t out there “trying to spread propaganda or anything else.”

Gaige said there have been several people who’ve said they don’t believe in guns, “and walk away with their nose in the air,” but there have been others who’ve told him, while they don’t believe in guns, they “believe in your organization and what you do," and put $20 in the jar.

“So it’s a mixed bag,” Gaige observed. “But again, when people ask, ‘Why do you do this?’ We have the same bills that you have in your house. We pay water and sewer. We have overhead. We have the same bills that you have,” so Post 977 has to come up with creative ways to make money.

The issue with fundraising, Gaige observed, is that there are too many organizations chasing too few dollars; “everybody’s [vying] for the same” pot of money. But the Legion has had some recent success obtaining grant funds, having received $15,000 from Albany County in May to fix its roof. 

Gaige also pointed to a $13,000 grant obtained from Home Depot about five years ago that allowed the Legion to upgrade its Altamont Boulevard building, noting Legion members were able to do a lot of the work themselves, stretching $13,000 of work into $20,000 in the process.

For now, the $13,000 and $15,000 grants appear to be more one-offs rather than the start of a new sustainable fundraising model, which is “largely due to the fact that we need a grant writer,” Gaige said. 

Post 977 has already done the legwork to earn eligibility, but the Legion doesn’t have anybody with grant-writing experience, Gaige said. “Because, I don’t know how many years ago it was, the state had money for not-for-profits who do what we do. And one of the top on the list was veterans’ organizations, fire departments, and things like that. But we had nobody that could write that grant.”

But in the meantime, Gaige invites the community to stop by any Tuesday night and do their part to help the Legion with its fundraising. “We’re having meatloaf or chicken piccata or something,” Gaige said, at $6 meal, “and ask some questions and have a beer, if you want one, or a glass of water.”