In January, JDinteractive (JDi) students came to the Syracuse University College of Law for several in-person residencies. Many brought heavy winter coats, hats, mittens and scarves, not just to endure the snowy Syracuse weather themselves but, more importantly, to donate to military veterans in need.
Operation Veteran Warm-Up was the idea of Inge Gedo L’25, a 3L in the JDi program who wanted to create a way for the JDi students to feel more connected to Syracuse Law by participating in a service project similar to what some of the Law School’s residential students do throughout the academic year.
A retired U.S. Air Force officer who lives in Virginia, Gedo bounced the idea off a few others during a residency on mediation held in Miami in December. It was well received, so she approached the Syracuse Law Military and Veterans Law Society (MVLS) and its faculty advisor Teaching Professor Elizabeth Kubala, who is also the director of veteran and military affairs; the executive director of the Betty and Michael D. Wohl Veterans Legal Clinic (VLC); and the director of clinical legal education at Syracuse Law.
The MVLS agreed to facilitate the project and decided that this year’s Operation Veteran Warm-Up would support an initiative that the VLC was already involved with in the greater Syracuse community. In partnership with the Syracuse VA Medical Center, The Altamont Program operates a transitional housing facility with 55 beds for unhoused veterans, both male and female, and provides case management, therapy and other services with the intention of finding veterans permanent housing and helping them get back on their feet. Operation Veteran Warm-Up complemented the efforts that the wider University holds each winter to assist students in need through its Operation Orange Warm-Up, as well as Syracuse Law and the entire University’s long-standing commitment to veterans in the community.
With only a few weeks until the on-campus residency, Gedo sprang into action to get the word out to the JDi students from the classes of 2025 to 2028 who planned to come to the Law School in January. She even set up a way for students to purchase through Amazon, so they wouldn’t have to pack items in their luggage. Delivery to Dineen Hall was difficult at this time of year, however, as the building was closed prior to the residency for the University’s annual winter break Orange Appreciation Days. Thankfully, Kubala stepped up and volunteered her home address for package delivery, and soon the items started rolling in. Donations even came from JDi students who were not attending the January residency.
Another wave of donations arrived when the residency began on campus, as JDi students brought winter clothing with them or purchased items locally when they arrived and heard about the service project. At the end of the residency week, some students from warmer parts of the country even donated the gently used coats, hats and scarves they had bought for themselves specifically for the trip to chilly Syracuse. In the end, more than 100 items were donated to Operation Veteran Warm-Up and distributed to those in the transitional housing program.
“Inge is the kind of person who gets behind something and makes it happen,” says Kubala, who got to know Gedo when she worked as her research assistant. “The participation and generosity of our JDi students and the willingness of the MLVS to facilitate Operation Veteran Warm-Up was simply amazing. Our residency programs are always a way for our JDi students to connect on a more personal level and get acquainted with the Syracuse Law campus, but this time it was even more special as the service project gave so many of the students an added sense of belonging by working together to meet a real need in the local veteran community.”
Gedo, who currently works as a legal intern at the Fairfax County General District Court in Virginia, will complete her degree in August 2025, but she is hopeful that the MLVS will continue to facilitate Operation Veteran Warm-Up with the JDi program annually and expand it, possibly including residential students, too.
“We intended to just start small this year, and we weren’t sure what the response would be,” says Gedo. “But, we were thrilled with the donations, and the feedback from the JDi students has been so encouraging. Not only did we assist veterans, which is, of course, very near to my heart as a veteran myself, but we also added another level of camaraderie to the JDi program. It turned out to be a very special project that I hope will continue in the years ahead.”