Operation Green Light is a nationwide campaign geared towards showing appreciation towards the men and women who have served their country both in peace time and active time. WSKG's Brent Fox spoke with Broome County Executive Jason Garnar about how people can get involved.
Brent Fox: So let's just start off with what is Operation Green Light?
Jason Garnar: So Operation Green Light is a campaign, it's a statewide campaign, actually a nationwide campaign, but it's a campaign that the New York State Association of Counties is doing and Broome County is a part of it, that is encouraging residents and businesses and local governments to display green lights on their homes and buildings during the week of Veterans Day, to basically show support for our veterans and remind our veterans that there's a lot of resources in our community that are available to help them.
Fox: And why do you feel it's important that you know this kind of program that we do show our appreciation to all the veterans out there?
Garnar: Well, I think for a couple reasons, I think especially with Vietnam War era veterans, they did not come home to any type of a welcoming community. They weren't welcomed warmly when they came back. And, you know, it's kind of interesting. We have the Honor Flight that comes out of Broome County, we just had a bus trip. And this is where veterans get to go on a trip to see their memorials in Washington, D.C. But one of the really nice parts of the Honor Flight is they get to come back home to a hero's welcome. And a lot of our veterans are Vietnam War era veterans that go on the trip, and they never got that type of welcome. So the Green Light campaign is part of that, right? It's part of, you know, showing veterans especially, you know, during the time of the Vietnam War, the Vietnam War era veterans that we are really proud of them, we're very thankful for their service to our community. But then again, there's this other part where we want to make sure that if they need any type of support, or help, you know, we have the resources here to help them.
Fox: And when is this happening?
Garnar: It happens the week of Veterans Day. So it starts November 6, and it goes all the way through November 12. Now, we're already seeing people put green lights up on their porches, we're already seeing this start to start to happen. But really, our our, the time that we're focusing on is the 6th through the 12th of November.
Fox: And how can someone get involved? Like how can they, you know, make sure they show their support?
Garnar: So this is what we're really encouraging people to do. And this is where Broome County is really taking a much more active role in the Green Light campaign. So really, all you have to do is display a green light on your front porch. Now most people don't have green lights, the typical type of whites, so what Broome County is doing is we're making these green lights available for free at a number of different locations throughout the county. So you can go to the arena, the library, our Broome County office building here, a number of our senior centers including Broome West, the Northern Broome Senior Center, Eastern Broome Senior Center, Deposit, Vestal in North Shores Howard Senior Center. And you can go into any of these places and get a light for free. And you can certainly go to a store and or buy it online. But I think we're offering well over 1000 light bulbs at all these different locations for free. And you can certainly go to our website to get a list of all the locations.
(End of interview)
Operation Green Light runs from November 6-12.