Pittsfield — The Berkshire Veterans Outreach Center recently moved from its old location, 505 East Street, to 5 Cheshire Road, Suite 128, in the building known as the Allendale Underground. The new space was previously occupied by Currency Coffee Co.
Retired Marine Steven Schultze, who served from 1997 to 2019, founded nonprofit organization Berkshire Veterans Outreach Center four years ago. Schultze, a resident of Otis, is the organization’s director, as well as a National Veteran Service Officer.
The organization’s old office on East Street was 1,200 square feet. Meanwhile, its new office on Cheshire Road, at 2,700 square feet, will give the organization more space to offer its services and grow. “We are very fortunate to get this space with the small budget that our organization has,” Schultze said. “We’ve been working at the new office since the beginning of October, but it has taken us a few months to rehab this site to where it needs to be. Because we have more space, we have expanded our food and clothing pantry. We also now have two dedicated office spaces where our veteran service officers can have closed-door counseling because some of the sessions that we have can cover some difficult topics.”
Schultze said that the organization’s main focus is to help and assist veterans and their families. “We’re an organization that specializes in helping veterans and their families navigate the process to access Veterans Administration benefits,” he explained. “We also aim to be a one-stop center for resources and information. If a veteran comes into the office and asks a question about a service we don’t offer, we connect that veteran with someone who does. My mantra for the organization is that we never say the words ‘that’s not our job.’ We always say, ‘Here is who can help you.’ That is the mentality that we have at this organization.”
Schultze said that there are over 11,500 veterans in Berkshire County. “And that is just the veterans, that number does not count their family members,” he added. “If you double that number, that is the number of people we’re trying to reach out to. Family members of veterans may be eligible for benefits as well. But there is an information gap amongst veterans and their families about the benefits offered by the VA and the other resources out there.”
Schultze said that applying for benefits from the VA and finding out the resources veterans can use can often be an intimidating process. “The VA, in my opinion, has had such a bad reputation for so long that veterans are reluctant to undertake the process of seeking out benefits because it is an overwhelming and very burdensome process to start,” Schultze said. “I went through the process myself when I retired. I received outstanding assistance to navigate the VA, and there is no way I could have done this all by myself.”
The organization offers free assistance with VA disability claims, VA pension applications, VA health applications, and veteran ID card applications. It also offers a free food and clothing pantry, housing assistance, an incarcerated veterans program, and legal assistance referral, along with many other veterans assistance programs. “We offer so many services to veterans that some of them aren’t even listed on our website,” Schultze said. “It depends on what the veteran comes in for. For example, I got a phone call earlier today about a veteran looking for hand controls for his vehicle. He was shot in the legs while serving in Vietnam. Obtaining hand controls for a car is not a service that you see listed on our website, but it’s something that we will help that veteran try to find, whether it’s through the VA or another nonprofit organization.”
Schultze added that the organization falls under the umbrella of the nonprofit 501(c)(3) Veterans Outreach Center in Springfield. “We do accept donations, and 100 percent of every dollar donated to us stays in Berkshire County,” he said. “We’re not one of those organizations that is forced to send money out to Springfield or a national headquarters. This organization is 100 percent all about benefiting Berkshire County veterans.”
For more information about the Berkshire Veterans Outreach Center, visit its website.
