Recipient of the 2007 President’s Award for Volunteer Service – Learn More
We received this because of the efforts that we put forth to help our son, Dino, who was serving in Iraq, in the Marines Weapons Co 3/24. One day he called us at the store and told his mother, Valerie, that they needed fire retardant underwear, so we started raising money for that. He then told us that they needed raincoats and we got those and then he told us that they needed spot lights for their humvees and we sent those to his unit.
We did this with the help of Debbie Fisher whose son, Travis, was in Iraq with our son, Dino.
And, of course,with all of the people who donated money to help us with this.
“Below is an excerpt from an email that I went to another father detailing what we had done”
My son Dino is a Marine and he just returned from his 7 months in Iraq and he came home in one piece. Due to the fact that he was hunting for ied’s and he was in the lead humvee and two of his guys were badly burned over 70 % of their bodies-he asked me to send him some Nomex underwear so I and a friend started e-mailing friends and family and raised about $17,000 and sent about 200 pairs of flame retardant underwear-we actually found a new type that was softer and supposed to be better than Nomex. Then he asked for 32 raincoats which we sent-we were able to find dark green finally. Then he asked for spot lights that they could put on heir humvees so they could see better at night and we sent a lot of those-I don’t remember how many plus extra bulbs. I feel very good knowing that we might have made someone feel more secure.
Another father of one of the Marines that served with our son heard the story and asked if it would be ok if he submitted our story for the award.