MidCo Material Handling Awards Super Bowl Tickets to Heartbeat Wounded Warriors
This year’s Super Bowl will be long remembered by Seattleites for its great catches, runs, cold weather and the long awaited World Championship title. But, two other guys, 30 yr. old Mark Dickison Jr. and 33 yr. old Jason Orme will remember this game for other reasons just as important as watching their Seahawks battle under cold New Jersey skies.
Sometime in mid January, Terry Bolinger, President/CEO and Phil Hanford, VP (owners) of Midco Material Handling Co. and decided they had a pretty good year in 2013 and wanted to do something special for those whose year may not have been as fortunate. Selecting the “special gift” was the easy part, the “how” was a little tougher. The gift would be two tickets to the Super Bowl along with $2,000 in cash to handle transportation and misc. expenses for two Wounded Warriors from the Seattle area.
The call went out to a popular Seattle icon for assistance. Jesse Jones, of King 5 fame, received the call for help from Phil Hanford. Jesse then made a call to one of his buddies, Ron Monaco, from Harbour Pointe Men’s (Golf) Club in Mukilteo. Ron has been a loyal friend of Heartbeat Serving Wounded Warriors for a number of years and holds an annual fundraiser for them every 4th of July at the Mukilteo golf course.
Ron put together a list of “must haves” and “want to haves” and called Director Janice Buckley of Heartbeat. The two connected, and with Phil’s assistance, identified some more helpful contacts to make this all happen. Within a short and pressure packed 48 hrs. the yeoman work…i.e., making the calls to book the airlines and hotel to say nothing of selecting the warriors to receive the donation as well as handling any gifts, cash donations, transportation, food and other misc. items were arranged by Janice & Heartbeat to make the trip complete. The Harbour Point Men’s Club then stepped up with a cash donation to cover some misc. expenses. Then the Seahawks Community Relations office added some Seahawk gear for the perfect fan experience.
In addition to the incredible gifts, Terry Bolinger and Phil Hanford also volunteered employees and associates of Midco to assist in completing the challenges to pull this all off. Midco Branch Mgr. Jerry Dolan worked closely with Janice Buckley and contacted Mike Flood, the Seahawks Community Relations VP, who supplied Seahawk Jersey’s, 12th Man rubber wristbands and stocking caps. Kudos also to Clark Material Handling executives Scott Johnson and Charlie Schwaz. Then there is John Wermert, VP of Raymond of New Jersey, who will be handling the east coast support activity.
At last count, some 7 different organizations and 10 executives (along with associated staffs) played an active role in putting this incredible journey together for these two very brave warriors.
These gift givers and support teams are typical of Wounded Warrior volunteers in the Northwest and around the country. It seems they can never do enough for our veterans. Characteristics our politicians and VA might take note of.
