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On Aug. 15 of this year, the Austin VFW Post 1216 turned 100 years and this coming weekend they will be celebrating the milestone with four days worth of activities.

The celebration will start on Thursday with a ribbon cutting at the VFW, followed by bingo on Friday. On Saturday, the celebration shifts to Cedar River Golf Course in Adams for a two-person best shot before coming back to Austin for live music from 4:30-10:30 a.m.

Sunday will be a day for families with bounce houses, free hotdogs, root beer and root beer floats. And then at 5 p.m. that night, a ceremony will be held where a time capsule will be packed up and sealed.

“We would like to see a nice crowd down here,” said former VFW commander Scott Wiechmann, who now serves as trustee after Justin Hutchinson became the current commander.

Post 1216 was established on Aug. 15, 1924 and throughout its 100-year history has been a place for veterans and their families.

Wiechmann said it’s no small accomplishment to have been a part of the community for so many years.

“That’s a lot of time for any organization,” he said. “To be active for 100 years is quite a time.”

“The VFW does a lot for our veterans and the families of our veterans,” he continued. “It just shows you that the veterans all serve their country and then they come back and they are still in the community serving and supporting their country, supporting their communities, supporting their youth. I think it says a lot about the organization as a whole that it’s been able to stay and remain solvent. An entity helping the community.”

At its core, the VFW has been instrumental in both honoring and serving veterans. Through those efforts they support the veterans in the community in whatever ways they need.

However, it goes beyond that as the VFW has their influences in a number of different areas, whether that is through honoring those veterans that have passed or helping to support the VFW Post 1216 baseball team and hockey team as well as Boy Scouts.

The VFW also supports schools within the county. All of this together is a big undertaking for a VFW that is the only one in Mower County.

“We’re doing things that build up the community and strengthen the community ties and allow them to still do what they are doing,” Wiechmann said. “To have a baseball team, to be able to have scouting, to be able to support the school band.”

One of the challenges the VFW has faced over the years, is a drop in memberships — something service organizations all over are having to cope with.

In 1974, Wiechmann said that Austin VFW was the largest in the nation, boasting a membership of 2,500 members. Today, that number is sitting at around 205 members.

“There are thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of veterans that are eligible to join the VFW and a lot of them haven’t done it yet or they’ve joined and aren’t really active yet and a lot of that has to do with they are younger veterans,” Wiechmann said. “They have careers, they have families, they have a lot of other things pulling on them.”

However,  that’s not to say that things aren’t improving. Currently, the leadership of Post 1216 is made up of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, proving that there is interest in being a part of what the VFW is doing.

“Eventually, and this is what we’ve found out at our post, if you stick with them long enough and they see you’re doing things in the community they believe in they will join,” Wiechmann said. “They have to see you’re doing something and you’re not just the old boys club where it’s a bar and that’s it.”

For all of the things the VFW has done for the community over its century of existence, its most important role has been service to the veterans and this goes beyond supporting them. It’s been an opportunity for fellowship among people who have the same backgrounds.

It’s been something that Wiechmann, himself, has cherished.

“It’s just hanging out with the other veterans,” he said. “They get what you are going through and they get where you’ve been. A place where you can come and do stuff together as veterans.”