Weltanschauung friend Bonnie is in the Chicago media for her work helping raise funds to build a Fisher House there (one near the Hines VA Hospital and later another in northern Chicago)! Congratulations, and thank you very much for supporting Fisher Houses. For those of you who aren’t familiar, a Fisher House is a place where the families of service men and women can stay while their loved one recuperates from wounds.
Bonnie had some very nice things to say about Kevin Butler (Chicago Bears field goal kicker, rookie during Super Bowl ’85) and also about Gary Sinise and his Lt Dan Band (they played in concert to raise money for the Fisher House in Chicago). I second both, what great acts! It looks like the Lt Dan Band will be back to repeat the feat on 19 July 2008 at Cantigny Park in Wheaton, IL (Thanks also to Ms Deborah Rickert of Operation Support Our Troops–Illinois for the additional information about the upcoming concert; and thanks to Grant & Power Landscaping for helping support the overall effort)!
Below is the text of an e-mail from Fisher Houses for Illinois, Bonnie is mentioned in the second-to-last paragraph.
|
|
||||||
|
The following message was sent out by the Fisher House Chair to it’s Committee: Hello to Fisher Houses for Illinois Board, Committees and Volunteers: We have really great news to report. What a thrill and what a surprise! Fisher Houses for Illinois received a generous contribution of $75,000 from fellow military support organization Operation Support Our Troops-IL (OSOTIL) at this non-profit’s July 21, 2007 Rockin’ for the Troops Benefit headlined by CSI:NY star Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band. These funds are specifically earmarked for the Fisher House for Hines VA Hospital. |
| Debi Rickert, President of OSOTIL, presented the check to Fisher Houses for Illinois representatives before 10,000 attendees at the Benefit at Cantigny Park, Wheaton, Illinois. Added to prior OSOTIL contributions (in April 2007) for the first Fisher House in Illinois, this brings the total of OSOTIL-generated donations to $110,000. This earns a permanent plaque for this generous donor in the Fisher House for Hines. This organization’s volunteers have been a delight to work with from the get-go. They are dedicated to their mission and to support the needs of our members of the Armed Forces of the USA deployed in harm’s way. To date, OSOTIL has sent over 12,000 care packages to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, 5,000 of those in 2005. OSOTIL has also raised enough money to fund the purchase of two specially equipped vans for wounded soldiers. Supporting America’s wounded military personnel is another facet of the mission that OSOTIL is looking to expand upon in the upcoming year. Fisher Houses for Illinois is fortunate to have OSOTIL partnering with us to help veterans in Illinois and the surrounding 16 states with the Fisher House for Hine. Please take a few minutes to e-mail OSOTIL President Debi Rickert at d_rickert@msn.com to thank her and her tireless workers for giving the Fisher House for Hines such a huge boost. In addition, we want to express our gratitude to the volunteers who manned the Fisher House for Illinois exhibit at the OSOTIL Rockin’ for the Troops Benefit and those who volunteered to work shifts with OSOTIL. Bonnie Chattler, Jim Boland, Rich Flatley and Barbara Kemp were magnificent as they built awareness of our mission by speaking with hundreds of attendees and distributing buttons and brochures. Rich Goulet and his wife, Mark Garry, Madeline Bikus and Mary Vaughn plus VFW members Vito DeSimone and Mike Henning worked shifts with OSOTIL in a number of areas from traffic control to ticket-taking and clean-up. |