To the Editor:
With fall just around the corner, we have started planning for our annual October feast where we host our brothers from Lyon’s VA hospital PTSD ward. This year has been especially hard to raise funds or get donations to help us bring the men to our house for some good cooking and entertainment. With funds running low due to the daily operational cost of the chapter, we are asking you to help us with a small donation to assist us in continuing this great tradition of honoring our veterans.
We all look so forward to this event because we know that what these men are being treated for is a disease that can never be cured. But with the help from the medical staff at Lyons, they can learn to live and cope with PTSD. What we do at the event is get them out for one night to sit, enjoy the company of other veterans, have a home cooked meal and some laughs and just maybe, we all can help each other heal a little before the evening ends with hugs and a long awaited welcome home.
The food and dessert is all home made by members and their families and no one leaves hungry. After their bellies are full, they are entertained by none other than our best friend Pete Michaels, a local comedian and ventriloquist who hails from Staten Island, New York. Peter Michaels has starred in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, has appeared in a movie and has donated his time to our veterans for many years at our house. Pete himself was in the Army, but did not serve during Vietnam, and he says this is his way of honoring our heroes. Pete will have our veterans laughing for an hour with his jokes and his “friends” he brought along.
Whatever donation of financial assistance you can give would be appreciated. For more information, contact Tina Miller at (201) 858-0378. Thank you for take the time out of your busy schedule to read our letter.
DAN SCHRADER