VETERANS BREAKFAST CLUB

The Veterans Breakfast Club was was born from a remarkable gathering of 30 World War II veterans brought together in the fall of 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Fort Couch Road in Bethel Park, PA, simply to share their stories. The emotion was so high, and the stories so enthralling that the organizer, local businessman Dan Cavanaugh, scheduled another session, this time open to the public. Sixty attended the second morning, and one veteran’s daughter said upon leaving, “I’ve never heard my dad tell these stories before. There’s a real need for this kind of thing.”

By early 2009, Todd DePastino, a professor and writer of history, had teamed with Dan to create a non-profit that would host local storytelling programs where veterans of all eras and ages and kinds of service could share their experiences with the public. The VBC found venues in Penn Hills, Moon Township, and North Hills to carry their monthly programs, now well established in Bethel Park, to other areas of the region. By 2010, they were scheduling 30 events a year and drawing 50-150 people at each event.

In 2011, the VBC recruited a six member board of directors, received 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and expanded its programs to include region-wide events, such as the Veterans Day Breakfast at Duquesne University which draws 750 attendees, and special events at the Heinz History Center and Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall for post-9/11 veterans.

In early 2012, the VBC’s board insisted that while the stories told were healing, instructive, and inspiring for the people attending, they needed to be recorded, preserved, and shared more broadly with the public. Thus, the VBC’s Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Project was born. To date, the project has cataloged over 600 veterans' stories through a thousand hours of audio and video footage, as well as over 5,000 photographs and documents. We make these interviews and supporting materials available on our website and through various other video sharing outlets. Our creative commons license allows for any other educational use.

These efforts attracted regional media attention (spots on KDKA-TV, WESA-FM, in the Post Gazette, Tribune Review, and local magazines) and, in turn, attendance at our events and requests for interviews rocketed. In 2014, the Heinz History Center entered a partnership with the Veterans Breakfast Club to serve as a repository of the Veteran Voices collection for use in exhibits, programming, and an in-the-works web platform.

In 2015, the VBC launched its first fundraising event along with the first issue of Veteran Voices: The Magazine of the Veterans Breakfast Club, featuring the stories and photos of veterans who have attended its events and sat for interviews.

In 2016, the VBC will launch a grant-funded model project to reach a generation of veterans under-represented in our current programming: those who have served since September 11, 2001. We propose to identify and gather post-9/11 veterans Western Pennsylvania in order to record, preserve, and share their stories with the public, and, in so doing, deepen their connections to the community, encourage healing, and inspire all.

Since that morning in 2008, when 30 veterans gathered at the Crowne Plaza, the VBC has hosted over 3,500 unique individuals at its 40 annual storytelling events. “It helps to listen,” remarked one Vietnam veteran at a recent event. “Perhaps one day, I’ll tell my story.” Our job is to be there when he does.