Connecting women veterans with resources

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- Saturday morning a veterans meeting was held for women in the borderland. The meeting was set to help provide women veterans with resources.

"I know there's a lot of resources out there for women veterans but unfortunately a lot of them don't get reached," said Shelia Anthony, a veteran.

"There are a lot of gaps. Since I've gotten to connect with some of these women I realized there's a bigger pattern than just me," Beatriz Ramirez, veteran.

Saturday morning American Legion hosted a meeting for women veterans. Introducing resources available to the veteran female community.

"We found there were a lot of deficits and gaps in women's services and care. So what we're having today is education and bringing them the resources that they might not know because when you don't know you just don't know that there's a service available for you," said Maria C Gonzalez, El Paso Texas Women Veterans director.

The meetings are held every 3rd Saturday of the month.

"To empower, advocate, educate, build partnerships and relationships with other veteran organizations," said Gonzalez.

"It's just a wealth of information here and there's a lot of superheroes in disguise around here and we all need each other," said Melissa Harcrow, a Veteran.

"I think unfortunately a lot of people still have that mindset that only men can be veterans and even, unfortunately, some females or women think the same thing. Like yeah, I served... but am I really a veteran. I think getting that word out like okay look you raised your hand, you did what you had to do. So yeah you're a veteran," said Anthony.

"Having this opportunity to sit with a lot of these women has been enlightening. We've been able to figure out some of these common issues, go ahead and figure out, have the opportunity to figure out a lot of these common issues and how it can not only just help the women veterans, but it seems like a lot of the issues that are being proposed, are going to help male veterans in our community as well," said Ramirez.

"I'm gonna keep coming as long as they have them," said Anthony. "Keep on getting the word out that we're here were not gonna be silent. So, we're gonna make sure we're taking care of each other to get the resources that we need".