The Veterans Resource Center held a Taco Tuesday event to interact with students in the quad.

The VRC had tables and tents set up for people to sign in and receive a ticket to get tacos, among other food from Chando’s Tacos, who catered the event.

The VRC partnered with American Legion Post 55 Laguna-Elk Grove, who had a tent set up and were giving out boxes of Girl Scouts cookies. Straw Hat Coffee provided beverages as well.

Eugene Dehoney, student personnel assistant for the VRC and former Marine, said the event’s goal was to bring exposure and visibility to the Veterans Center in addition to celebrating veterans. Dehoney said the event helped build a community with civilian students.

“I thought it would be fun to do a Taco Tuesday event,” Dehoney said. “The last event was during the spring when we did a barbecue event, so I just thought ‘What better than tacos?’ Everyone loves tacos.’”

Brian Bracamontes, a 28-year-old computer engineering major and USMC vet, said the Veterans Center is for any student, veteran or dependent, who wants to activate their educational benefits so they can go to school and they can help them do that.

Bracamontes said the Veterans Center organizes these kinds of events themselves and looks to vendors for their involvement. They also do outreach with other programs that assist veterans and dependents.

“Even though we focus on their educational benefits, we also point them out to other resources,” Bracamontes said. “Events like this, we bring the resources to them.”

American Legion Post 55’s involvement happened when liaison John Hall was notified via email and phone calls that prompted him to let Larry Sahota, Commander for American Legion Post 55, know about it.

In the past, John Hall, one of the hosts for the event, directed the mentoring Post 55 had done for the veterans at Cosumnes River College. John Hall’s wife Betty Hall said the post sometimes brings goodies to the VRC from Move America Forward, a nonprofit organization that sends care packages overseas to deployed troops.

According to an Elk Grove Citizen article, the Halls organized the annual Walk to Remember scholarship and it was created to honor their late son, US Army sergeant first class Bryan Hall, who died during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009.

“We have veterans out here who are members of our post and we want to support veterans any way we can,” Sahota said.

Daniel Bracamontes, a 29-year-old computer engineering major and veteran, also Brian Bracamontes’s brother, said this event was the first event he partook in since he started working with the VRC this past summer.

Since Daniel Bracamontes started, he said more people became involved in the organization and have involved more students .

“Usually, a lot of events have gone unnoticed through the system and we want to bring students together with more events,” Daniel Bracamontes said.