Humans of Allen: Mrs. Blake

Humans+of+Allen%3A+Mrs.+Blake

“I’m Dawn Blake, and I’m a teacher fellow of the Korean War Legacy Foundation and I’m also a member of the Digital Korean War History project. About six years ago, I found the Korean War Veterans Association’s Tell America program. I found out that, for free, we could invite Korean War Veterans to come and share their stories about their Korean War Experiences. A couple years ago, somebody mentioned to me about the Korean War Veterans Digital Memorial – a website where veterans are interviewed and their stories are told. Through all of my work with these programs, I started considering how a lot of these veterans do not have a proper diet. I kept thinking we [AHS] have land behind the agriculture building. I asked if I could use some of the land to grow some things for veterans and eventually the vegetable garden exploded and we ended up growing over 1600 pounds of vegetables and they all went to local veterans in our area. We currently have over 50,000 veterans in Collin County and, considering their average current age and health issues, we are helping them a lot.”