This highly anticipated facility has been about 14 years in the making. Marve Garbe is the chairman of the Montevideo Veterans Home Committee, a group that took regular bus trips to St. Paul, to push for the project, along with the Montevideo Veterans Coffee Group. The Coffee Group raised $19,000 for the project. Garbe said that of the 17 original group members, seven have since died, but their mission lived on.
"Back in 2007, a small group of us started to talk about a veterans home and the need for it," Garbe said. "Our mission was to get a veterans home built in this area to serve the veterans here. And the main reason is so their families don't have to travel long distances to visit them."
Current Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs-operated homes exist in Fergus falls, Hastings, Laverne, Minneapolis and Silver Bay. This Montevideo facility is one of three new veteran's homes being built by the MDVA. The others are in Bemidji and Preston and they will provide gap services for veterans living in greater Minnesota. The regional hub for veteran care in Montevideo will sit on about 14 acres and will have 72 beds.
"When we started talking about veterans home, there was 1500 veterans in the state that weren't being served," said Garbe. "Yes, they went to nursing homes and things, but it's nice when it could be have veterans together in their own home, there's some camaraderie there. We raised over $5 million in our area."
The largest local fundraising Push came from the estate of Steve Williams from Clarkfield, who died in March of 2018. "Steve was a Vietnam [War] veteran and cared greatly for veterans," Garbe said during a speech he gave in front of the crowd gathered for the event.
"And he had said before he passed away, he wanted to contribute to the Montevideo Veterans Home and he left $3 million for the project. So it was just a godsend," Garbe said. "And just what that additional money we're able to put a community room onto the facility."
"It's a moment where you see the community standing up and hearing the story of Steve Williams, who basically, in his estate, put the startup money for this ... so it would get going and that he wanted his experience as a veteran to live on and help other veterans," said U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar who attended the event.
In 2018, the Minnesota State Legislature approved $32 million for the three homes. The Montevideo project received $9.4 million. "And that sort of starts the process for my department, the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs, because at that point, we can go in and we can ask for federal funds," explained Larry Herke, the commissioner of the MDVA.
According to the MDVA website, the three new homes are slated to receive more than $80 million in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs State Home Construction grants. Minnesota State Senator Andrew Lang is the chair of the Veterans Committee in the Senate. "When we took the next step and went to the federal level and said, yeah, we're gonna do all three homes and you guys are gonna fund it, and they actually did, it was a good day, so we're here today, celebrate a little bit and get there, get our golden shovels in the ground," he said.
Sen. Lang's counterpart Rep. Rob Ecklund, who is the chair of the Veterans Committee in the House, was also in attendance. "And then there are good economic driver for all the communities that get a facility like this to so it's a, these things are usually bipartisan," he said.
Herke expects this new facility to bring in 120 to 130 full and part-time jobs, which could be challenging to fill. "My biggest challenge is employers, to try to find those healthcare people," he said. "So I'll be asking the community today to help and assist me to find those people. And in some cases we'll help to, for the entry level positions will actually help train those individuals. For other positions we'll need to draw people with experience from other places."
"All of this is it's really, really exciting," Sen. Amy Klobuchar said. "And I just figure when our vets sign up to serve there wasn't a waiting line. and when they need healthcare or a place to live, a bed to sleep in, there shouldn't be a waiting line in this area. So we're really excited about this partnership."
This facility represents two unique wins for Minnesota, a successful bipartisan effort. What seems like a rarity in modern politics and a substantial investment in rural people and places. The Montevideo veterans home project is expected to be completed in 2023.
