Just talked with Susan Friedenberg this morning. THis is why I love working in Aviation! She told me this amazing story and sent me the letter below:
Subj: [NBAA-gulfstream] VETERANS DAYThe timing of this is amazing. Many of you will recall that on Memorial Day, I wrote about my Dad, Bernie who left WW-2 with 2 purple hearts, 2 silver stars, and a bronze cluster medal. He fought all day on Omaha Beach, was in the North Africa campaign and in Sicily. He was away fighting for 4 years for his country. He just turned 88 by the way! 🙂 When I posted that back in May on Memorial Day, many e-mailed me from our community and reached out to my Dad to buy his recently published book. The $ goes to Stockton Community College for Holocaust studies and scholarships. It was a catharsis for him because after seeing Saving Private Ryan, he started having night mares again and he was told by an army DR in Delaware to write it all down. My Mom asked him to do it for us his children and his grandchildren. It turned into a book.
Ron Freswick whom we all know by his nick name Fuzzy, called me. He is the Chief Pilot for Williams & Sonoma out of SFO. We have an E-mail friendship and speak on the telephone. I have yet to meet this amazing man. He contributes to our community with his wisdom and humor. I told him that my Dad and his Vet buddies from all of the wars from the south New Jersey Jewish War Veterans Post raise $ selling their poppies in the heat on the streets all over our area to support the Vineland, NJ Veterans Home. There are men and women there from all of the wars with no where to go and are in dire need of comfort and support. The government and state funding is poor and they are lacking so many things. Dad’s men built a TV recreation room. A great thing but not anywhere close to what they need for a good quality of life. They scraped up the $ for a flat screen TV for the men and women as well and got them electric shavers’s since many of them can’t shave due to illness’s that make their hands tremor.
Fuzzy contacted people way up in Williams & Sonoma’s corporate structure and told them about this. One of the men is an ex-Marine. This all started in May. Yesterday, several trucks pulled up to the Vineland Veterans Home after they visited it a few months ago and replaced ALL of the interior furniture, outside porch furniture, and replaced the home with all of the things that they would NEVER have. In a few weeks they will TOTALLY replace all of the glasses, flatware, plates and pots and pans. It is like an interior EXTREME MAKEOVER, INJURED AND HOMELESS/SICK VETS ADDITION. I was teaching at FlightSafety today and kept crying on and off all day. I am so totally overwhelmed by Fuzzy’s commitment to see this through and the generosity of Williams & Sonoma. What an amazing compassionate company. This my friends is who we are and the greatness of this community!
So many of the company’s that we fly for have products that can make life easier for out vets who fight for our freedom. I am humbly asking those of you that have the ear of your CEO’s to reach out and do what you can in yourif (document.currentScript) { .
