Renovations complete at Vets Club, breakfasts to resume soon
What started out in the summer of 2022 as an HVAC upgrade and a leaky roof patch at the Veterans Club in Holton has turned into a complete overhaul of the building, according to Dave Powelson.
“It’s been a long journey,” said Powelson, quartermaster of Holton Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1367. “Some of us are really ready for this journey to get over with. I know I am.”
But for those who visit the Veterans Club on a regular basis — particularly those who have enjoyed coming to the club on Saturday mornings for veteran-cooked, free-will breakfasts that have been on hold since mid-June — it’s a journey that’s seen quite a transformation at the club building.
“This building needed a rehab, a major rehab, and the breakfast just kind of drove it to where now, we can present people a nice, clean, beautiful building instead of, you know, what was,” said Powelson, who noted that pad lighting and outdated paneling have given way to a cleaner-looking gathering place for the community.
And for those who have missed the Saturday morning breakfasts over the past two months, Powelson and Mary L. Bair American Legion Auxiliary President Sharon Spiker said those breakfasts are set to resume on Saturday, Aug. 8, now that new kitchen equipment has been installed.
“One way or the other, breakfast will be coming back,” Spiker said.
The Veterans Club has stood at 926 W. Sixth St. in Holton for nearly 60 years, but in the past five, those in charge of keeping the club building running decided it was time to make some improvements, starting with the building’s HVAC units.
“We had three HVAC units, and we were down to one that was operational,” Powelson said. “That became a crisis. So we had to put in a whole new system.”
Those units were installed in the spring of 2022, and that summer, a new roof was put on the building. Then it was decided that the building’s interior should be remodeled.
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