The Dale K. Graham Veterans Foundation was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Masonic Charity Foundation of Oklahoma to provide support for programs that help veterans and their families as well as operating costs. Dale Graham’s mission is to serve military veterans and their families by focusing on sharing their collective knowledge and experience to help with the Veterans Administration claims process. The Foundation also provides onsite mental health counselors from the veteran’s centers, legal aid representatives, and assistance and guidance when a temporary source of food, rent, utilities, shelter or transportation to and from medical facilities is necessary for veterans and their families. All services at the Foundation are provided free of charge. Lora Malone, Executive Director for Dale K. Graham Veterans Foundation, said, “It is a complete honor to accept this gift from the Masonic Charity Foundation of Oklahoma due to the fact that our missions are parallel in the goal of giving back to America’s Heroes. This gift will provide so many with the opportunity to heal and be appreciated.” The Masonic Charity Foundation of Oklahoma is proud to provide continued support to our Oklahoma veterans.
Who is Dale K. Graham? Lance Corporal Dale K. Graham, US Marine Corps, served on active duty just short of two years, which included thirteen months in the Republic of Vietnam with the 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion, 3rd Marine Division. After returning from Vietnam in June 1967, he was discharged. He was accepted for employment at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, where he worked for thirty-five years, finally retiring in 2002. In 1990 he began doing volunteer work with the US Department of Veterans Affairs where he studied the rules of veteran benefits procedures. He eventually would provide dedicated service to over 20,000 veterans in a span of over twenty years with a dozen of those years the service was conducted out of his home. In 2003 he moved over to the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs where he continued his volunteer work doing essentially, under the Norman Chapter of the American Legion, what he did out of his home. He left the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs in 2005 to develop an independent source for veteran assistance under the umbrella of the Norman Chapter of the American Legion and the Goldsby Veterans of Foreign Wars Chapter. In 2006, with the completion of the Goldsby Community Center, he organized and built up a group of volunteers to weekly, on Thursday, join him in assisting client veterans. The resulting volunteer group became known as Veterans Corner.
The Dale K. Graham Veterans Foundation’s office is closed now due to Covid-19 but to learn more please visit their website at https://dalekgrahamveteransfoundation.org/ for more information. You may also contact them at 405-550-8806 for information .