(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

“The Veterans Breakfast Club is all about the stories. There’s no agenda, there’s no advocacy, really. There’s only this community that is focused on encouraging veterans to share their stories of service with others.”

The Veterans Breakfast Club will be holding two major events for Veterans’ Day 2022, showcasing the unlimited bounty of stories and experiences shared by the veterans who have served in America’s wars from World War II to as recent as Iraq and Afghanistan. VBC executive director Todd DePastino joined Matt Drzik on the November 9 edition of A.M. Beaver County to discuss these events.

The first of the major events for the VBC is a live breakfast to be held at Duquesne University at 8:00 AM on November 11 inside the Student Union Ballroom. Judge Mike McCarthy, a former Vietnam Veteran with the Navy SeaBees, will be the Keynote Speaker for the breakfast. DePastino himself will be the emcee, allowing for those in attendance to share their stories, which may carry a range of emotions from light-hearted to heavy and reflective.

The other major event for Veterans’ Day is the 12-hour “Vet-A-Thon”, which will feature hourly conversations in a digital/Zoom format. Unlike the live breakfast, which will feature mostly local veterans from Western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas, the Vet-A-Thon will be more wide open. “It’s going to be a worldwide connection between veterans,” DePastino said of the event. “That’s how our online program has been shaping up; we tend to focus more on our Veterans Breakfast Club members who are living in Texas, California, Wisconsin, Virginia, or anywhere.”

Beaver County will be host to an upcoming VBC event as well, when Seven Oaks Country Club hosts a Pearl Harbor recognition breakfast on December 7 from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM. Further details about that event as well as all other events can be found by going to their website at veteransbreakfastclub.org.

To listen to the full interview with Todd DePastino, hit the play button below!