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SERVE: Revisiting a Century of American Legion Auxiliary Cookbooks is produced by TALA Unit 1879, Colorado State University.
Unit 1879 was chartered in spring of 2017, founded at Colorado State University and affiiated with the Student Veterans Organization at CSU. We are the first TALA unit with this type of affiliation.
Colorado State University is currently home to more than 2,000 military veterans, and their Student Veteran Organization was recently named #1 in the country.
We are proud of our affiliation and continue to seek ways to support our student-vets.
We are small but mighty! Meet the active members of TALA Unit 1879, who each contributed to the making of SerVe.
We are small but mighty! Meet the active members of TALA Unit 1879, who each contributed to the making of SerVe.
Unit President Karen Boehler is a former ALA National Chaplain and former ALA Department of Colorado President. Co-Project Manager for the book, Karen researched and wrote military histories and gathered narratives. She has been a positive, tireless force in the organization for more than 20 years and initiated the charter of Unit 1879 after seeing a need to serve the veterans on campus.
Unit Vice President Rachel Van Houten was Girls State Director for Colorado, 2018 and 2019. She's also our tech expert (website creation, social media, photoshopping); along with her husband Josh, Rachel researched and taught us ecommerce so we could sell SerVe nationally.
Unit Treasurer, small business owner Rachel Cashin (a former caterer and exceptional culinarian), enjoyed paging through the vintage books and identifying household tips to include in our anthology.
A nurse, Debra Herrick has played an instrumental role with Girls State (2018, 2019) and is our award-winning Unit Historian. Debra and her husband Jupe, a retired CFO at CSU, handle the accounting for the book.
Unit Secretary Ann Diaz teaches college composition and has been a professional editor for two decades. She researched the civilian-military gap for her masters thesis at CSU and took a class in InDesign to create the cookbook. Co-Project Manager and visionary for SerVe, Ann worked with recipe testers and also coached them in photography.
Sharon McFall is a customer service pro and makes our bakes sales wildly fun and successful. She led the way on recipe selection for the book and tested dozens of recipes. Sharon organizes our weekly "Treats for Student Vets at CSU" efforts.
Kim Miller teaches all day and leads Boy Scout adventures in her spare time; she leads our care package efforts. A candy-making aficionado, Kim tackled toffee, custard, and other sweet stuff for the book. We did a SerVe peach cobbler fundraiser to help send Kim on the Honor Flight as a chaperone.
Jen Sajbel is our resident dietitian and fundraising expert. She welcomed us for cooking parties in her well-equipped Pampered Chef kitchen. Fun!
Lennie Carlin and Carrie Faye Thompson are community-minded business owners. Lennie's daughter served in the U. S. Air Force, and Carrie initiated a program for veterans at Hearts & Horses. Together, Lennie and Carrie organized a breakfast for a musicians' camp in the mountains using our recipes.
Megan Valliere is a political science major at CSU and is active with the College of Liberal Arts service team. She has been a Girls State delegate, represented Colorado at Girls Nation, and continues to participate as a program counselor. In her spare time, she helped test recipes including the homemade ice cream (we let her do the cranking!).
See what we're up to in our community! Find us on Facebook at The American Legion Auxiliary Unit 1879, Colorado State University and ALA Centennial Cookbook.
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