Spare Time Bowling Alley
525 Pleasant Street
Northampton, MA
Free Lunch for Veterans (including their family and friends!)
This free meal for veterans, their friends and family, or any person concerned about veterans issues, is intended to build community, plain and simple. These are informal gatherings to meet and talk as a fellowship and community of veterans and non-veterans alike. We believe that filling bellies with warm, delicious food is an important step to feeding and filling the spirit of a community. It is our hope that anyone who has served, regardless of religion or lack of religion, will feel comfortable attending.
On February 17th, Congressman James P McGovern visited our weekly lunch for veterans at the World War II Club.
"'I had a thousand different conversations on a thousand different topics,' McGovern said Wednesday afternoon as he was leaving the World War II Club on Conz Street, noting that he was moved by the way the veterans seemed to be looking out for one another.
Among them was World War II veteran Edwin Nartowicz, 92, who served in North Africa and Italy as a gunner in the Army. He has been coming since the lunches began a year ago. 'It’s something to do,' he said.
Conversations tend to focus on politics or sports, Nartowicz said, explaining that they try not to dwell on 'the bad stuff' — which for him is dominated by memories of sleeping in the mud and snow, perpetually freezing. 'That was a hard, hard time,' he said."
-From "Support for veterans should cross party lines, Congressman James McGovern says at World War II Club lunch" February 18th, 2016