Veterans Day often inspires Maine’s veterans to give back to their fellow veterans. Vet to Vet Maine, a nonprofit that connects volunteer veterans with vulnerable veterans who need a friend, is recruiting volunteers statewide after recently launching an interactive online volunteer peer companion training course.

Veterans who would like to become volunteer peer companions or phone pals no longer have to wait for live training sessions to be scheduled. Using the new interactive online training, volunteers can learn at their own pace all the skills they need to become V2VM volunteers.

Vet to Vet Maine has been connecting veterans in Cumberland and York counties since 2014 and is now expanding to serve veterans statewide through this online training and the V2VM Phone Pal program, which began in 2020 to provide socialization for veterans during the early days of the COVID outbreak.

To become a peer companion, volunteers are interviewed by the Vet to Vet Maine staff, complete the training course, provide proof of service and three references, pass a background check, and commit to one year of service after training.

Currently, V2VM has 62 active peer companions and a waiting list of veterans who would like to receive visits from peer companions. Veterans who want to give back to fellow veterans by becoming a peer companion, may contact Judie Alessi O’Malley at 207-759-4024, email at director@vet2vetmaine.org or visit https://vet2vetmaine.org