The Air Force Sergeants Association Chapter 1328 from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., along with the American Medical Response, an Antelope Valley emergency medical team, treated resident veterans at the William J. “Pete” Knight Veterans’ Home in Lancaster to a fun afternoon of wine tasting and a palate-pleasing snack of cheese and crackers.
It was a bittersweet event for AFSA’s outgoing president, Senior Master Sgt. Adam Pawelek who was overseeing his last official AFSA activity as president of the organization.
Chana Alexander, representing the AMR, Pawelek and Tech. Sgt. Michael Burd, senior adviser for AFSA’s Chapter 1328, took advantage of the social event and made a special monetary presentation to the home and to the families of two local fallen heroes.
“We collected $8,300 from our third annual Hits for Heroes softball tournament played last October,” Alexander offered, and during Thursday’s wine tasting event the teams divided a percentage of those proceeds between the local veterans’ home and the families of the two fallen heroes.
The AMR is known for hosting charitable events and often shares the monies raised with the local AFSA which, in turn, spreads the wealth with many other veteran projects in need.
“Our goal is to help support fun projects for the resident veterans,” Burd said. He said the government doesn’t support certain quality of life projects for vets, so AFSA targets those areas to pitch in and help with.
During the Hits for Heroes event AMR also sold t-shirts honoring each fallen hero, one for Sgt. Steve Owen of the LA County Sheriff’s Department who was killed while responding to a domestic dispute, and the other for EMP Christopher “Chris” Parry, an AMR team member who was killed in a traffic accident, the goal is to not let these heroes be forgotten.
Lawrence Hawkins, supervising rehabilitation therapist for the local veterans’ home accepted the home’s share of donations and said receiving such a gift is “awesome!”
“Our veterans appreciate everything that AFSA and the AMR does for us, they are part of our family,” he said.
“We love our veterans past and current,” Burd said.