2021 Locals Love Us favorite volunteer: R.V. Turney

R.V. Turney said it was “overwhelming” to learn that The Picayune Magazine readers and KBEY 103.9 FM Radio Picayune listeners chose him as a 2021 Locals Love Us favorite volunteer.
Turney volunteers with the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10376 in Marble Falls, delivering food to people rain or shine and collaborating with Sam Pearce of The Helping Center of Marble Falls to make sure struggling families get fed.
“I love doing it,” Turney said. “I love helping people. I kind of look at it this way: I’m willing to do anything, particularly at the post and for veterans. I find it very rewarding. All I like to hear is a thank you and a smile. Money can’t buy that.”
Turney serves in several capacities at the VFW post, but most important, he said, are his roles as chaplain and chairman of the biannual Buddy Poppy drive. He’s been doing the Buddy Poppy campaign for about six years. The fundraiser collects money for the Veterans’ Relief Fund.
“If we have a family, a veteran, a spouse of a veteran that needs help, we can step in with some financial assistance,” Turney said. “This year, we’ve probably helped half a dozen with medical things. A husband might be disabled or sick and can’t work, so we step in and help them with food and money.”
Right now, Turney is focused on getting the younger generation to join the VFW, efforts that have landed him praise as a top VFW recruiter statewide. 
“The Iraqi veterans and the Afghanistan veterans, they’re the ones that will replace us,” he said. “So many of the young guys today make the comment, ‘Well, I just got out of the military. I served four years, and I don’t want anything to do with the VFW.’ That’s when I have to go in and make my sales pitch.
“It’s not so much what you do, it’s what the Veterans Association can do for you,” Turney added.