Veterans needing housing assistance got a boost in February, thanks to a group of fellow veterans.

The North Olympic Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America (moaa.org) presented a $5,000 donation to the North Olympic Peninsula Veterans Housing Network, a nonprofit focused on helping house at-risk veterans, to develop. a recently purchased eight-bedroom group home off South Seventh Avenue in Sequim.

Richard Havel (U.S. Navy, Ret.), president of the local MOAA group, presented the donation to NORVHN president Cheri Tinker at a luncheon in mid-February.

Thanks to a donation from the estate of the late Lt. Col. James Minsky (U.S. Air Force) of Sequim, made by friends and estate executors Helen and Greg Starr, the nonprofit hopes to have the new home — called “Lt. Colonel James Minsky Place” — remodeled and ready for veterans by the fall, Tinker said in an interview.

Network officials have been planning a group home for at-risk/homeless veterans in Sequim for a few years, she said.