The San Luis Obispo Elks Lodge recently made a $3,000 donation to the Cuesta College Foundation, specifically the Jack and Nancy Sullivan Fund, to provide free parking permits for 100 of our local veterans. The $3,000 is a combination of $2,000 from an Elks National Foundation Gratitude Grant and a $1,000 fund-raiser.
Front row: Donna Donovan, Veterans Services chairwoman of the San Luis Obispo Elks Lodge No. 322, Shannon Hill, executive director of Cuesta College Foundation, and Austin Feavel, a 25-year-old Marine vet who is studying automotive technology at Cuesta. Back rock, from left, Justin Working, 29, an Air Force vet from Grover Beach who is studying chemistry, Hector Valle, 41, a Navy vet studying engineering of Los Osos, Isiah Robinson, 24, an Army veteran studying biology from Los Osos, Coast Guard veteran Randy Ryan, 60, of San Luis Obispo who is studying electrical mechanical technology, Karen Andrews of Cuesta’s Veterans Affairs Office, and Elk members Frank H. Rowan, Gary Donovan and Gloria Smith.
“This donation helps facilitate and support our local veterans to pursue and attain their educational goals as parking permits are required on campus but are not a covered Veterans Affairs educational benefit,” said Donna Donovan, veteran’s services chairwoman of the SLO Elks Lodge No. 322. “It is our way of saying thanks and remembering Army soldier Michael Mihalakis, a Cuesta College student who was killed in December 2003 while serving in Iraq.”
Mihalakis was a student in Cuesta College faculty member Jack Sullivan’s accounting class at Cuesta College before he joined the Army National Guard. While deployed to Iraq, Mihalakis emailed Sullivan letting him know he would return soon after the spring semester was set to start and asked him to “save a place for me” in his class. Within a month of sending that email, Mihalakis died in a Humvee accident in Baghdad.
To honor the memory of his former student, Sullivan donated $1,000 to a fund in the Cuesta College Foundation to purchase parking permits for Cuesta College veterans. Each free parking pass is known as “A Mike.”
“We should be able to do small things like this for them when they did the BIG thing for us — they were willing to give 100 percent,” Sullivan said. “It’s just a small effort to maybe make their lives a little easier, to say thanks and to remember Mike.”