The Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) is the nation’s premier non-profit for connecting veterans with their fellow Americans through inspiring stories of service. We’re the place where veterans can share what they’ve seen and done—and where everyone can listen and learn.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Pittsburgh Veterans Day Breakfast
Wednesday, November 11, 2026 | 8:00–10:00 AM
Duquesne University Student Union Ballroom | Pittsburgh, PA
Join hundreds of veterans, family members, friends, and members of the community for the 28th Annual Pittsburgh Veterans Day Breakfast, the largest Veterans Day breakfast in Pennsylvania.
For the first time, the Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) and Veterans Leadership Program (VLP) are joining together to host this great Pittsburgh tradition.
The morning will include breakfast, veterans’ stories, special guests and speakers, fellowship, and a Veterans Resource Fair connecting veterans and their families with organizations and services from across the region.
Veterans, family members, and members of the public are all welcome.
Veterans Day is a day to honor those who served, but this breakfast has always been about more than ceremony. It is about bringing veterans together, hearing their stories, connecting people with one another, and strengthening Pittsburgh’s veterans community.
This year, proceeds from the breakfast will benefit the Veterans Breakfast Club and Veterans Leadership Program, two Pittsburgh organizations dedicated to serving veterans and building stronger communities around them.
Tickets
Tickets have been reduced in price this year to $20 to encourage as many veterans, families, and community members as possible to attend. Register here.
A Pittsburgh Veterans Day Tradition Since 1998
The Pittsburgh Veterans Day Breakfast began on Veterans Day in 1998, when Vietnam veterans Tony Accamando, T.J. McGarvey, Dan Pulz, George D’Angelo and others with the newly formed Friends of Danang gathered supporters at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center. Their immediate purpose was charitable: Friends of Danang was raising money for humanitarian work in Vietnam, including projects benefiting children, schools, and communities in and around Danang.
That first breakfast started an annual tradition that grew into the largest Veterans Day events in Pennsylvania. Over the years, thousands have come to the event not simply for breakfast, but for camaraderie, recognition, and a chance to support good work in the veterans community.
The breakfast also became increasingly collaborative. Friends of Danang generously opened the event to other organizations and causes, including the Veterans Leadership Program, Shepherd’s Heart Veterans Home, the Duquesne University veterans scholarship program, World Vision International, and later Life Changing Service Dogs for Veterans.
The Veterans Breakfast Club has been part of this tradition for the past 15 years. In 2011, the VBC started holding a WWII veterans’ storytelling event at the breakfast. VBC Executive Director Todd DePastino has served as the event emcee for the past several years.
This year, for the first time, the Veterans Breakfast Club and Veterans Leadership Program are partnering to host the Pittsburgh Veterans Day Breakfast, with proceeds benefiting both organizations.
We are grateful to Tony Accamando and Friends of Danang for creating this remarkable Pittsburgh institution and for sharing it so generously over the years. VBC and VLP are proud to carry it forward.
Our goal is simple: keep the tradition, broaden the community, and make Veterans Day a morning when veterans from every generation can come together to share stories, find resources, connect with community and celebrate their service.
More Than a Breakfast: Veterans Resource Fair
We also want the 2026 Pittsburgh Veterans Day Breakfast to be a place where veterans can find useful information and make connections.
Organizations serving veterans and military families will be invited to participate in a Veterans Resource Fair at Duquesne University. Veterans will be able to meet representatives from organizations working in areas such as health care, benefits, employment, housing, education, legal assistance, family services, recreation, and other veteran programs.
VBC has hosted similar large veterans resource gatherings in the past, and we want to bring that same spirit to Veterans Day: one room, hundreds of veterans, and many of the organizations that serve them gathered in one place.
Parking
Convenient parking is available at the Forbes Avenue Garage, directly across from the Student Union.
Forbes Avenue Garage
1180 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (click for directions)
Sponsorship Opportunities
2026 Pittsburgh Veterans Day Breakfast Sponsorships
Questions? betty@veteransbreakfastclub.org or call 412-623-9029.
Thank you to our Premier Event Sponsor, Legend Senior Living!
One of the oldest surviving U.S. Army buildings in America is the Hessian Powder Magazine in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This sturdy limestone structure was built during the darkest days of the American Revolution to store the gunpowder and ammunition that helped sustain George Washington’s army. But who built it? And why has it long been known as the “Hessian” Powder Magazine?
Join us for a special America 250 program featuring a screening of the new 40-minute documentary The Hessian Powder Magazine, followed by a live conversation with historian Jack Leighow of the U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center and Army University, who helped lead the years-long research behind the film.
Drawing on newly uncovered documents, architectural analysis, ground-penetrating radar, and archaeological excavations, the documentary follows the remarkable effort to solve a centuries-old historical puzzle. The investigation confirms that the building is indeed the Revolutionary War powder magazine constructed in 1777 as part of the sprawling military depot at Carlisle, one of the Continental Army’s most important centers for manufacturing weapons, ammunition, and military supplies. It also reveals compelling evidence that Hessian prisoners captured at Trenton likely helped build the magazine, giving new meaning to a name that had long been dismissed as little more than local legend.
The story illuminates the enormous logistical effort behind American independence, the workshops, foundries, carpenters, blacksmiths, laborers, and military planners who supplied Washington’s army when victory depended as much on production as battlefield success. It also reminds us that history is never finished. Even after 250 years, archaeology, archival research, and careful scholarship continue to reshape what we know about the Revolution.
Following the film, Jack Leighow will discuss the investigation, answer questions, and explain how this remarkable survivor of the Revolutionary War is helping us better understand the nation’s founding as America approaches its 250th anniversary.
Latest Blog Posts
VBC programs connect and heal,
educate and inspire.
Everyone is always welcome.
The Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) is the nation’s premier non-profit for connecting veterans with their fellow Americans through inspiring stories of service.
Our goal is to build a nation that understands and values the experiences of our military veterans so that every day is Veterans Day.
We do this by bringing together–in-person and online–men and women from all walks of life, all ages and eras, and every branch of service to talk about what they’ve seen and done. We want to hear how people’s military service has shaped them. “Every Veteran Has a Story” is our slogan. We want to hear every one.
We share the stories we hear in our weekly VBC Bulletin email newsletter and our quarterly VBC Magazine. We also record a weekly podcast, The Scuttlebutt, about military culture from the people who lived it.
We do all this because we believe the best way to thank a Veteran is to listen.
Listening is what the VBC has been doing for the past 15 years, when we held our first small event outside of Pittsburgh. Since then, we’ve held over 1,000 programs in-person and online and have welcomed over 20,000 different people at our events, Veterans and non-Veterans coming together to listen.
We value every veteran’s experience, no matter who they are or when or how they served. We’ve seen up close the power of storytelling, as the memories shared at VBC events connect, heal, educate, and inspire an ever-expanding circle of listeners.
THE VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT
Preserving veterans’ stories so that this living history is never forgotten.
We pair passionate VBC volunteers with military veterans for one-on-one oral history interviews over Zoom. If you are a veteran, or you know a veteran, who would be interested in sharing his or her story with us, let us know. If you are someone interested in conducting these interviews, please reach out!
At any given event, you might hear from the newest members of Space Force to a 101-year-old World War II veteran.
We’ve welcomed Tin Can Sailors and Montford Point Marines, Vietnam Sky Soldiers and Cold War intelligence officers. We’ve heard stories from the Horn of Africa to Antarctica, the Bering Sea to Diego Garcia, and all points in between.
LORAN Coast Guardsmen and Radar Station Airmen have told us about serving in some of the most remote places on earth.
Korean War veterans have borne witness to their “forgotten war.”
Other “forgotten warriors” shared their memories of Beirut, Grenada, and Mogadishu.
Some of the first women authorized for combat shared stories of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of the Purple Hearts they received.
