Yuma County veterans group works to reopen after devastating fire
A fire gutted the Foothills veterans hall, cutting off meals, claims help and a gathering place as the group pushed toward reopening.
The fire did more than damage a building in The Foothills. It stripped Yuma County veterans of a regular place to get help with paperwork, claims and medical issues, while the American Veterans Service Organization kept its weekly Tuesday meetings going in the wreckage of a service hub they had come to rely on.
Managers said the blaze began in a refrigerator out back in March 2025 and spread when wind pushed it through the rest of the building. No one was hurt, but almost everything inside was lost, including food, drinks, printers, copy machines, pens, pencils and other supplies, according to June Condon, the manager. The organization, formerly known as AMVETS, said it had helped about 55,000 veterans and their families over the previous 15 years from its base at 8889 S. Frontage Road.
The recovery effort quickly became a community project. On March 10, 2025, the group announced a cleanup effort and a GoFundMe, with volunteers asked to help at the site on South Frontage Road and Avenue 9E. The damage deepened later that month when thieves stole salvageable items left outside the burned building, including a car trailer. Michael Condon, the commander and a Korean War veteran, said the loss hit hard, saying, “We’ve lost a car trailer... it’s not so much frustrating as it just makes me cry.”
At first, the organization hoped to reopen within about three weeks. That timeline stretched to two months, then far longer as rebuilding dragged on. By Oct. 2, 2025, the group was in its final stages before reopening after seven months of work. When the doors open fully again, June Condon said the organization will resume helping veterans access full military benefits and will once again provide three meals a day, seven days a week at low cost.
The rebuilding effort carries added weight in a region where veterans still face access gaps. In January 2026, Veterans Affairs broke ground on a new 30,000-square-foot Yuma VA Outpatient Clinic, a free-standing facility planned to add primary care, women’s health, optometry, audiology and physical therapy, with completion expected in summer 2027. Until then, the veterans hall in The Foothills remains one of the few places where local veterans can walk in, get help and find a meal.
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