John Vieira and Skip Davis. PHOTO BY JOSHUA KODIS

As Father’s Day rolled around, roughly 100 antique, foreign, collector, modified and muscle cars rolled into town to take part in the 13th annual Father’s Day Car Show at the Vero Beach Elks Lodge hosted by the Vietnam Veterans of Indian River County. Despite its name, the various projects undertaken by the nonprofit are offered to all local veterans, regardless of their period in service.

The festive day drew large crowds, including generations of families bonding over their shared love of automobiles. After viewing their fill of vehicles, many attendees cooled off inside the lodge while enjoying barbecue fare and refreshments.

“We’re having a fantastic weekend. We had 266 golfers sign up for our tournament yesterday. We had almost 60 extra golfers this year,” said Vic Diaz, VVIRC director of projects and fundraising. He was referencing their ninth annual Mary D. Snyder Golf Tournament, which took place the day before on both courses of the Sandridge Golf Club.

“Sandridge will never see anything like that again. We’re the only group that has ever had over 200 players. It was a great event,” said Diaz.

Following the tournament, golfers headed over to the Indian River Fairgrounds for the awards luncheon, which he said was briefly interrupted by gusty winds and even a tornado warning that sent everyone indoors.

“Thankfully it didn’t happen, and we ended up with a very nice event and made a lot of money,” said Diaz.

The two events raised more than $30,000, which will help fund their various assistance programs.

“It all goes to help veterans, any veterans. It’s Vietnam and all veterans,” said Diaz. “We’re standalone boots on the ground, as we say it, here in Indian River County. When a veteran has a need and comes to us, we do everything we can to take care of that need.”

One major area of focus is housing, from constructing units to outfitting the residences with whatever is needed, such as furniture and cooking utensils.

“This project the last nine years has housed over 300 veterans in one form or another. We actually have a number of families in the units we built; four families,” said Diaz. “Now we’re moving into tiny homes.”

He explained that an investor already has diagrams to present to the city for nine, affordable tiny homes for veterans to rent or even purchase.

“There’s some veterans who have enough money that they could buy them, so they would own something themselves,” said Diaz. “It’s a great project.”

VVIRC members meet the first Wednesday of every month at 696 8th Court, Vero Beach. For more information, visit vvirc.org or call 772-794-0005.

Photos by Joshua Kodis