(Credit: Miri Smith, 2022)
Allen LaPelle, left, and Jason Shippee outside Vested Veteran Grill in Corinth.
More than a year since opening, Vested Veteran Grill is still running on Maple Street in Corinth, with a specialty menu and a mission to help. As other stories have reported, 10% of their profits are donated to fight PTSD in veterans, a problem that co-owner and chef Allen LaPelle saw in friends from his days in the Air Force.
Their Facebook page is highlighting a charity cornhole tournament organized by HicksStrong, a veteran group dedicated to providing free, professional therapy for veterans suffering with mental illness.
Still, the restaurant owners, a pair of locals, old friends and culinary artists, have another plan in the works to create a mentoring program and creative activities to help underprivileged children in the area.
Called InVest, the program will offer kids the opportunity to work in a community garden if their interests lie in that direction or to try their hands at art or sports, co-owner Chef Allen LaPelle said in a recent interview.
Beyond the activities, the pair will begin with a mentor program that will expand into life skills for the youth, Co-owner Jason Shippee said.
“Particularly over the last year, with shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, it seems the youth are becoming angrier,” Shippee said. He spent some time during his college years mentoring youth through the AVID program in the Syracuse school system. It is a program designed to prepare high schoolers for college, and he saw the impact mentorship had on the youth he worked with, he said.
LaPelle said that he and Shippee know that youth can turn to other programs, especially at school, but they hope this will add variety to the choices. They do not have a start date for the program since they are finishing the legal aspects of creating a program like this, LaPelle said.
“It’s a newer idea,” the Air Force veteran said. “We want to do it right.”
Giving has always been a part of the partnership.
In 2018 Allen LaPelle, and Jason Shippee began the Vested Veteran Catering Business. They said that it began as an expression of their love of the culinary arts, and provided their hometown community with a local option for catered events.
Several restaurants in their area have closed in recent years, and both LaPelle and Shippee are grateful that the Vested Grill has stayed relatively unaffected.
The duo first started the catering business and then LaPelle, after a spell of new training in New Orleans, bought a partnership in Main Street Dogs in Corinth, and Shippee joined a couple months later. They quickly outgrew the space and moved to 126 Maple Street last May, forming Vested Veteran Grill.
LaPelle and Shippee realized that providing a local eatery to their neighbors was a nice start, and they said Corinth welcomed them with open arms. The two wanted to express their appreciation.
Learn more about InVested, here. The HicksStrong Cornhole tournament is Saturday, July 30, at the Argyle American Legion. For more information, click here. HicksStrong is an advertiser with FoothillsBusinessDaily.com.