U.S. Military members develop many skills while serving, but those skills don’t always translate easily into civilian life.
Leadership Pittsburgh’s Community Leadership Course for Veterans tries to use those skills to benefit organizations in and around the Steel City.
“They’re trying to bridge veterans to the community to use their resources and also reintroduce veterans who were in the service for a number of years back to the Pittsburgh region,” said Chris Kowalczyk, a U.S. Army veteran.
That’s what brought around 50 veterans, children and their parents together at the Pittsburgh Glass Center on a recent Saturday. They worked to build an American Flag mural.
Kowalczyk helped plan the event and was one of several veterans sharing his stories with children while helping them construct the flag. Marine Corps veteran and CLCV member Conor Lamb also shared his stories.
“I think we hope that the kids, through working on the flag and hearing our stories about what it means to serve, we’ll get a sense that he things that he flag stands for, liberty and justice, our country are things that actually have to be worked on and built by people every day,” Lamb said.
The children also had the opportunity to create individual glass art while speaking with veterans in small groups. Tolu Ogunyemi worked with Army veteran Ryan Ahl; they talked about food and what the American flag means.
Ahl said the event was not just about veterans teaching kids, but learning from the community as well.
“We have such a large community of veterans in the city of Pittsburgh and in the southwest PA region that we thought it was really important to learn more about our diverse community and connect everyone together because that’s what makes us great as Americans and as the city of Pittsburgh,” Ahl said.
