Wounded Veterans Benefit Comedy Show with PJ Walsh & Friends
June 25th 2014
“Wounded Veterans & The Arts: The Odd Couple That Works”
25 June-14 – press release Download here!
[PJ Walsh in white & green shirt]
Navy veteran and comedian PJ Walsh pictured with USMV MC NY4 President Bill Barber (middle) and V.P. Colin Brennan (on rt) at the half-way point of the first “Run for Veterans Healing: Preventing Veteran Suicides” in San Antonio Texas last June. H. G. Fairfield Arts hosted the Comedy Show featuring PJ Walsh for their national 2013 Presidents Meeting. The Friday 7:30pmJune 27th Comedy Show at Brewster H.S. also launches Sullivan County’s USMV MC NY4’s 2nd run preventing veteran suicides, “Riding For Our Lives.”
Navy veteran and comedian PJ Walsh hears what veterans from all over the U.S. have to say last June at the U.S. Military Vets Motorcycle Club’s national Presidents Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Brewster, NY, based organization, H. G. Fairfield Arts, sponsored a Comedy Show featuring PJ Walsh for the veterans and presented information all weekend on active therapeutic strategies that work to manage PTSD, as part of the first annual Run for Veterans Healing preventing veteran suicides with USMV MC NY4 of Wurtsboro, NY.
Performing this Friday at Brewster H.S., here is PJ Walsh last June with members of the U.S. Military Vets Motorcycle Club NY4 Chapter, staff from the San Antonio Airport Hilton, & Pres. H.G. Fairfield Arts, Kim Blacklock, after the standing room only comedy show for veterans at the national Presidents Meeting of the USMV MC in Texas, at the half-way point of the first annual cross-country motorcycle “Run for Veterans Healing.” The 2nd annual, “Riding For Our Lives: Preventing Veteran Suicides,” – also launches this Friday 7:30pm at June 27th’s Brewster, NY, Comedy Show with PJ Walsh and Friends to benefit Wounded Veterans.
Brewster, NY. June 25, 2014. Wounded veterans and the Arts may not be seen often in the same sentence, yet, 7:30pm Friday June 27th at Brewster High School’s Performing Arts Center wounded veterans and The Arts combine together in a successful fit. Arts, Culture, and Community promoter H.G. Fairfield Arts Center for the Environment brings home national comedian PJ Walsh to benefit a unique transition program for wounded veterans in Semper Fi Odyssey, to pay homage to Brewster VFW Post #672’s 75 years of continual service, and to raise funds and awareness for local Brewster programs for veterans, including BHS’ Semper Fi Students.
“With every U.S. community welcoming our 2.5 million troops returning home from wars since 2001*, with families and friends scrambling to fill health care voids left by overloaded systems, budget cuts, and employment shifts, creative problem solving our veterans’ and families’ needs becomes everyone’s shared focus;” states H. G. Fairfield Arts President Kim Blacklock; “Communities barn-raise for each other, we know co-operation works; via the mix of Arts and veteran support groups we as a community get to come together to affect healing and creating positive choices for a better quality of life for each other.” Semper Fi Odyssey is a wholistic program run in the mountains of Pennsylvania by Major General T.S. Jones (USMC, RET) for all military branches’ discharged wounded, ill, or injured veterans; seven hundred have completed retreats and continue their transition back into civilian life since 2008. Blacklock continues: “Yoga is just one technique used to help at Semper Fi Odyssey, exercise another, and positive thinking, too. Art therapy is becoming more widely utilized everywhere with veterans, while the next 20 year’s employment growth percentage boons are solidly in arts, recreation, health, and the environment **. Many of the recognized stress reducers by the National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention *** are inherent in the pursuits of arts, cultural, and recreational activities. What looks like performance art and a rollicking night of
comedy, actually steps out of a planned campaign with Brewster VFW Post #672 and others to find veterans and families who need help, to apply some community love to the problem by supporting locally-led programs that work well, and to move on together.”
This Friday June 27th at 7:30pm you can see for yourself the powerful mix of how wounded veterans and the Arts works at Brewster High School’s Performing Arts Center. The Comedy Show is headlining a local Navy veteran returning home to help those already here helping. The spectacle is benefitting incredible locally-led programs serving wounded veterans and their families well. The event demonstrates through the talented generous likes of PJ Walsh, Mary Dimino, Lou Milano, and H.G. Fairfield Arts Founder Kathie Freston (USMCR ’53-64) that the Arts in service to the community, and in particular to our veterans, culturally contributes to a better quality of life for all of us.
Tickets are $20 at the door, online, or at Sponsor locations. Entering the discount code of “700” online at http://www.thebansbeenlifted.bpt.me , to make it easier for you to help wounded veterans. For more info call 845-363-1559, email office@HGFairfieldArts.org, or visit www.HGFairfieldArts.org or www.PJWalsh.com. -///-
Links: * http://costsofwar.org/article/us-veterans-and-military-families
** http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=122312
*** http://www.prevention.va.gov/Healthy_Living/Manage_Stress.asp
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June 4th 2014
Comedy Show Benefits Brewster Healthy Veteran Projects
04june14 press release – Download the PDF here
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), 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.”
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Links:
Facebook – Courage Continues at Home with PJ Walsh
May 20th 2014
Big Time Comic Helps Hometown Veterans
20may14 press release – Download the PDF Here
May 20, 2014, Brewster, NY. National headlining comedian PJ Walsh has his small town roots in Brewster, NY, yet he keeps coming home to make a difference for local veterans and their families. Mark your calendars: This June 27th, Friday 7:30pm, PJ Walsh performs his crowd-pleasing stand-up comedy at Brewster High School’s Performing Arts Center to honor, benefit, and bring attention to what local veterans and organizations are up to as they take care of their own.
Brewster VFW Post #672 celebrates their 75th Anniversary Jubliee this coming September and to honor the accomplishments of, and bring attention to, local Brewster veterans helping local veterans and their families for 75 years, H. G. Fairfield Arts presents the launch of their 4th Courage Continues At Home Comedy Tour with PJ Walsh to benefit three veterans projects with Brewster roots: Brewster VFW Post #672, Semper Fi Odyssey, and BHS’ Semper Fi Students.
Ed Todd (SGT. 20th Infantry, PA ARNG RET) Commander of Brewster VFW Post #672 tells us: “Join us for a hilarious night out with PJ Walsh. It is important to keep the Post’s Relief Fund healthy for cases of either personal tragedies or emergencies that our veterans and their families face. We are here to help veterans; it’s what we do. ‘The VFW – nobody does more for veterans.’ If you are a veteran who lives in the Town of Southeast or the Village of Brewster and who has served overseas in wartime, or in conflicts or in hostile fire zones, bring your DD214 to our table at the June 27th PJ Walsh Comedy Show and join the VFW. Remember, you earned it.”
June 27th Comedy Show with PJ Walsh also benefits another Brewster High School graduate’s project: (Lt. Col. USMC RET) John Folchetti (USMC) is a Team Leader with the unique program “Semper Fi Odyssey.” Mr. Folchetti explains: “[Last July] I returned from a week at the Semper Fi Odyssey, run by MGen Tom Jones USMC (Ret). … General Jones runs this camp as a transition process for wounded Marines, Sailors and Soldiers who are nearing discharge from the Wounded Warrior Regiments, both east & west coast. It is a phenomenal process. 35 [angry] PTSD/TBI/Amputee Marines, who want to stay in and continue to be Marines, but can’t, showed up on Monday. You name it, they had it: prescription pill abuse, alcoholism, a combination of both, marital issues, suicide attempts, etc. By Friday each of them had written both a personal & a professional mission statement that were tied to the Preamble of the Constitution and had identified a dream they wanted to pursue, and had written a full mission statement, complete with identification of obstacles & support to overcome those obstacles, on how they would accomplish their dream. All underwent a series of mock employment interviews from active professionals in industry, construction, IT, medical, and manufacturing fields. The reviews these professionals gave of the youngsters they interviewed Friday were glowing. The General typically runs 7 of these weeklong events every year [which are free to the participants from any branch of the military and funded mainly through the Semper Fi Fund]. I have never seen anything like it. There is not another program like it in this country.” Your attendance is encouraged to support such an extraordinary program helping our wounded veterans re-enter civilian life successfully.
The third group to benefit from the talents of PJ Walsh is PJ’s alma mater’s, Brewster High School’s, Semper Fi Students. Advisor Rob Gallacher (BHS History teacher) tells us “Semper Fi Students was created to support our active duty troops and veterans. This active group sends care packages overseas & locally, and has raised funds for “Wounded Warriors Project,” “Help our Military Heroes,” and “Tunnel to Towers.” Students volunteer with local VFWs and help individual elder veterans with yard and home improvement projects. We help with the “Bob Palmer Project” placing flags for every Memorial Day at Brewster veterans’ graves in 10 or 11 cemeteries. And these are only a few thing Semper Fi Students get involved with. Please come to the comedy show to support our local men and women in the military and to support their families.”
H. G. Fairfield Arts is proud to launch Courage Continues at Home IV Comedy Tour with PJ Walsh Friday June 27th 7:30pm at Brewster High School’s Performing Arts Center to benefit programs for veterans and their families with Brewster roots. The national veterans suicide prevention run “Riding for Our Lives” with the U.S. Military Vets Motorcycle Club NY4 will also launch at this community celebration of veterans. For more information call 845-363-1559, email office@HGFairfieldArts.org, or go online to www.HGFairfieldArts.org or to their Facebook pages. $20 tickets will be available online at www.brownpapertickets.com and at the door.
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