About VETEFITS
Nobody ever told me.
It is the most common sentence in this work, and the reason any of this exists.
He spent fifty years helping other veterans. Asking for himself was the hard part.
Pat Smith — a United States Army veteran of Vietnam who has spent roughly fifty years helping Colorado veterans get the benefits they earned, through the American Legion.
Pat spent about fifty years walking veterans through their claims — the forms, the evidence, the waiting, the appeals. He joined the American Legion in 1969 and never really stopped.
Last year, for the first time, Pat was the one who needed help — and asking turned out to be the hard part. People showed up anyway. A contractor donated a bathroom remodel; other trades followed. One favor became a question: how many veterans are going without something they earned, simply because nobody ever told them?
VETEFITS is what that question turned into.
What we are
An intersection, not an agency
The idea behind VETEFITS is simple: bring veterans and their families together in a welcoming place, face to face with local organizations that can help. We want it to feel like a gathering of the veteran community, more than a benefits fair or a seminar: somewhere veterans are celebrated and finding your way to what you earned feels personal. We are inviting local groups working on housing, employment, health, recreation and family support. We will tell you who is coming as soon as they confirm.
VETEFITS is Colorado veterans, families and neighbors. We are not the VA, not a law firm, and not a claims company. We do not file anything, decide anything, or take a fee.
What we do is narrow on purpose: explain what exists in plain English, and point you to the people who can actually help. The people who know these programs and the people who need them are rarely in the same room. This event is our attempt to put them there.
Colorado Veterans 150 · American Veterans 250
The line on Pat’s original planning sheet. 2026 is Colorado’s 150th year of statehood and America’s 250th — which is why the first VETEFITS event lands this year, and why it is framed as celebrating, recognizing and assisting Colorado veterans rather than as a single afternoon of paperwork.
Hosted by
Earth Saving Solutions
Earth Saving Solutions hosts the event, and the day takes place in its warehouse at 1015 E. 70th Ave., Suite A, Denver.
In partnership with
Summit & Shore Alliance
VETEFITS is in partnership with Summit & Shore Alliance.
After the event
The event is the first thing VETEFITS does, not the only thing it is for. The benefits pages stay. The list of organizations grows. If it keeps helping, it happens again.