Page 40 - Demo

Get into some pancakes to Get Behind The Vest
n BY AMBER RAMUNDO
In Chicago’s 19th Ward, the community’s support for police safety can be measured by stacks of pancakes.
That’s right, pancakes.
On Feb. 26, the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation (CPMF) will host the Third Annual Get Behind the Vest Pancake Breakfast, an event that brings together thou- sands of people from the Beverly/Mount Greenwood area (and beyond) to enjoy a quality breakfast in exchange for contribution to a cause that provides for the protection of CPD Officers. The 19th Ward is also home to thousands of Chicago Police Officers and other first responders.
Get Behind the
Vest Pancake
Breakfast
February 26
St John Fisher School 10200 S. Washtenaw Ave., Chicago
8 a.m.-Noon
This year’s breakfast will be held from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Kane Hall at St. John Fisher School.
Matt O’Shea, 19th Ward Alderman, is a CPMF Advisory Board member who knows all too well the importance of the Get Behind the Vest breakfast that raises money for the fundraising initiative that has already supplied more than 8,000 new vests to Chicago Police.
“Unfortunately, I know more officers who have died in the line of duty than I’d like to admit,” stated O’Shea while exhaling a deep breath as an archive of officers who died in the line of duty came to mind. He then began to state names: John Knight...Michael Flisk...Irma Ruiz; all names of fallen officers who remind O’Shea of why he wanted to get involved with supporting the Chicago Po- lice Department in the first place. “The list goes on and on,” he acknowledged reluctantly.
In February 2015, the Chicago Police Memorial Fund organized a pancake fundraiser with a little help from a family-owned breakfast hotspot in Beverly: The Original Pancake House. On the day of that inaugural event, lines of hungry police supporters entered Saint Christina Cath-
40 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JANUARY 2017
Photo by Richard Foertsch/PhotoProse
olic Parish for breakfast. The Original Pancake House pro- vided the ingredients and supplies to the church’s kitch- en, making multiple trips to deliver 5-pound buckets of pancake batter to keep up with the demand.
“The line went out the door,” O’Shea recalled. “It was no surprise to me, though, because in my community, we stand with those who stand with us.”
O’Shea and the CPMF were so confident in the support that could come from the 19th Ward for Get Behind the Vest that they reached out to local schools to get involved. Without hesitation, a handful of Catholic schools were on board, hosting “dress-down Fridays” when students who made a small donation to Get Behind the Vest didn’t have to wear their uniforms to school. Groups of Catholic school boys and girls wearing jeans and leggings in private school posed for pictures together that they sent to the Chicago Police Department as a way of saying “Thanks” and, “We support you.”
This year, there is hope that the Get Behind the Vest Pancake Breakfast will go just as well, if not better, than years past that brought in more than 1,000 supporters and raised $30,000 for the fund. If each bullet-proof vest bought were to represent one life saved, the first pancake breakfast alone spared the lives of 60 police officers.
“There’s a lot of things we do in life that we don’t real- ly see the result of,” O’Shea shared.
“But when an officer stops in
and says, ‘Hey listen, thank
you. I feel like I got this vest because of the efforts you guys put forth,’ it’s extremely gratifying.” d