American Legion serves dinners for posts birthday, St. Patricks Day

ARLINGTON Arlington American Legion Post 76 wants to send seven area high school students off to Boys State this year, and theyre willing to cook people dinner to do it.
Boys State and Girls State are summer leadership and citizenship programs sponsored by the American Legion and its Auxiliary, in which high school juniors and seniors elect mock officials, from their own numbers, to simulated city, county and state legislatures.
It educates them about their own government and gives them a great sense of investment in it, said Jim Barron, service officer of Post 76. When my boy went, he was elected a mayor. Theyre not there to play; they go to work and they learn a lot about politics and law in the process.
To help them do so, Post 76 is serving a St. Patricks Day dinner of corned beef, March 17 at 5 p.m., and their posts 89th birthday dinner of roast beef, March 22 at 5 p.m. Both dinners are $5 a plate, for Legion members and their guests, to raise funds for the Arlington, Darrington and Lakewood high school students they plan to send to Boys State in Spokane.
The main function of the American Legion is to help veterans and their families, Barron said. We have new veterans, coming into the area with health and financial problems, which is one reason we hold these benefit dinners. We also use them to sponsor scholarships and other programs for area students, like Boys State.
Barron estimated that it costs approximately $400 per student to send seven students to each years week-long Boys State program.
Weve invited last years students to come speak about their experiences at Boys State at our birthday dinner, so I hope to see some of them there, Barron said.

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