KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette Robert Minier hold the new flag that will be flown at Veteran's Grove during their annual fundraiser for Code Blue and their mission to help homeless veterans.

Robert Minier is proud to hold up a large Code Blue flag.

For him, it is a symbol of caring for and raising awareness for the homeless population in Lycoming County and the region.

For the past nine years, Minier and a group of veterans and volunteers have been involved with a group that holds an annual fundraiser at Veterans Grove Park, which is not a cemetery but, rather, an area along Lycoming Creek Road and West Cottage Avenue intersection that provides a place where veterans can be honored.

But each year about this time the group consisting of Minier, John Livermore and Dave Mechum also serve up some food, with a donation welcome but not necessary, with the proceeds and a pickup truck load filled with donated new hats, gloves and blankets that will go to Cold Blue, a the warming shelter at First United Methodist Church, 604 Market St.

“Oh, they love us,” Minier said of the church members and those who have housed 25 or more tenants per night between Jan. 3 and late in March.

Code Blue co-founder John Best and his wife, Sue Best, co-founded the initiative years ago and have been using it to house the homeless during the winter nights for a number of years with the church and will continue to, according to recent contact.

Last year, Mecum spent a night in a box overnight outside to raise awareness of the homelessness throughout the county.

“Yeah, he slept outside one night, and then we’re thinking about doing that again, but I don’t know what it will be at this point,” Minier said. “I don’t know if we’re going to be doing that or not, okay, but we’ll have the cardboard box out like we did last year.”

What started Thursday and continues through Sunday is serving up hot dogs, baked beans, and, on Sunday, adding pulled pork sandwiches, as well as any donations of new hats, gloves, scarfs and blankets, he said.

The hot dogs and beans will be served starting at 11 a.m., and the pulled pork sandwiches (with or without sauerkraut) starting at noon on Sunday to be courteous to those attending various church servi