Comedy Show Benefits Brewster Healthy Veteran Projects

June 4, 2014, Brewster, NY. Some very important Brewster veteran projects are making big differences in crucial health care for veterans and our families, locally and nationally. Semper Fi Odyssey is a unique transition program open nationally to all branches of the military’s wounded, injured, or ill veterans, Brewster Veterans of Foreign War Post #672 ‘s Relief Fund [for veterans] provides food, clothing, shelter, and access to medical care , and Brewster High School’s Semper Fi Students are active hands-on pitching in to keep local veterans & active troops feeling healthy and cared for. Putnam County-based H.G. Fairfield Arts is sponsoring, along with VFW Post #672 and Semper Fi Students of BHS, on Friday, June 27th, 2014, 7:30pm, a Comedy Show to benefit these important Brewster veteran projects. The night’s line-up aims to raise spirits, funds, and awareness and includes national headlining comedian and NAVY veteran, PJ Walsh (Brewster H.S. Class of 1990), (Brewster H.S. Class of 1990), the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs’ Outstanding Female Comedian Mary Dimino, and the i95 Home of Rock ‘n Roll’s on-air personality Lou Milano (BHS ’97). H. G. Fairfield Arts’ & PJ Walsh’s Courage Continues At Home Comedy Tour, now in its 4th year, focuses attention this June on Brewster VFW Post #672’s 75th Jubilee in September and on the positive healthy impact local Brewster veteran projects have in Putnam County and nationally.
Local Civil/Environmental Engineer, and another BHS graduate, John Folchetti (USMC, LT COL RET) is one of Semper Fi Odyssey’s Team Leaders. Run by MGen T.S. Jones (USMC, RET) in the mountains of Pennsylvania at Outdoor Odyssey, with some support coming from the Semper Fi Fund, Semper Fi Odyssey and its professional yet volunteer Team Leaders are committed to each participant’s individual progress, a long-term mentorship, and the successful transitioning out of the military into civilian workplaces. A 6-day holistic program focuses on self-assessment, career planning, higher education,
enhanced family relationships, while reinforcing the significance of mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, social well-being to ensure long-term success. Since 2008, over 700 of our service men and women have attended a Semper Fi Odyssey Retreat.
The 75 year anniversary Brewster VFW Post #672 is celebrating in September gives us all the chance to help reach out to even more veterans and families to make sure no one falls through the cracks on our watch. We have 100,000 veterans in our Congressional District #19, and half of New York State’s one
million veterans live in the mid-Hudson and Catskill regions and on down to NYC & Long Island. Nationally more than 2 million military service personnel are returning from conflicts overseas and most county, state, federal veteran service agencies are maxed out with client needs and under-staffing as
veteran populations age and grow. Identifying, locating, and supporting those veterans and families in need is a common goal of the three Brewster veteran projects highlighted by this June 27th Comedy Show at Brewster High School’s Performing Arts Center. BHS’ Semper Fi Students, with their Faculty Advisor
Rob Gallacher, are excited to co-host such an historic hilarious event for such far-reaching healthy Brewster veteran projects.
Harkening back to the cooperative barn-raising of yore and holding onto a grandparents’ adage of community building – “When one succeeds, we all succeed,” Blacklock asserts: “If we can get in a laugh or two or three, lighten the load for an evening of great fun together, if we can raise funds for and
awareness of the extraordinary Semper Fi Odyssey opportunity for our wounded veterans and what these two other fine Brewster groups are doing for veterans and our families, then we’ve each of us and together helped to truly honor our veterans, to reciprocate their service, to bolster community, and to
promote lasting healing and recovery. Together we can ensure the success of veterans facing the everyday hurdles of civilian life.”