Posted on August 20, 2011

PenFed Foundation Receives $2.5 Million for Defenders Lodge Initiative

The Pentagon Federal Credit Union Foundation has announced a $2.5 million gift from veteran Lee Anderson and his wife, Penny, to support construction of a new facility that will provide short-term housing for veterans receiving treatment at the Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Palo Alto, California.

To be named the Lee and Penny Anderson Defenders Lodge, the new facility will provide free American Disabilities Act-compliant housing that includes suitable amenities and accommodation for spouses and other caregivers. Scheduled to open by the winter of 2012, the Anderson Lodge will replace a dilapidated facility that no longer meets the needs of the nearly twenty thousand patients the hospital serves each year.

"Lee and Penny Anderson are fulfilling their responsibility as Americans to take care of our veterans long after they leave the battlefield," said PenFed Foundation president Christopher Flynn. "When we talk about today's wounded soldiers, they are typically returning from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and many are as young as their late teens and early twenties. This means we need to have the infrastructure surrounding hospitals and treatment facilities that support them getting the medical care they will need for practically their entire life."