WNY Heroes News & Announcements

Food Distribution will now take place every other Sunday. Future dates include 8/29, 9/12, 9/26, 10/10, 10/24, 11/7, 11/21, 12/5, & 12/19 

This awesome, so AWESOME NEW 8 week old Rottweiler puppy has just been donated to our program Pawsitive for Heroes and will become a service dog for a Veteran. His parents (Tammy & Jay Latham from Holland, NY) wanted to do something to help us. Sooooo they donated Hero! We will continue to post and keep WNY up to date to Heroes outcome!

Thanks so much to our friends at Allstate Insurance for their $10k for Operation BOOTS. This peer-to-peer program offers Veterans the chance to meet others who’ve “been there & done that” at various venues in a non-therapeutic setting.

It’s not just HSBC’s slogan. They back it up. This time, they backed it up with a $15k donation toward our Operation Feed Veterans program. Thanks to them, thousands of Veterans and their immediate family members have one less thing to worry about: Food!

We cannot say thank you enough to Assembly Woman Monica Wallace for supporting our Operation BOOTS program with a $25,000 donation!! Peer-to-peer support amongst Veterans is so important and so needed. Thank you Monica for believing in us and helping us continue to help local Veterans and their families. Thank you for being our hero.

WNYHeroes was honored to attend today’s memorial dedication ceremony, remembering BM2 Scott Chism & SN Chris Ferreby. They died serving their country while on a law enforcement patrol in the Niagara River.

Aug. 7th was National Purple
Heart Day! On behalf of WNYHeroes and the Veterans we serve, thank you for your service and commitment to our grateful nation.

Whelp, it happened today and SOOOO EXCITED! This has been in the works, developing and laying out the program since 2018. We are officially launched this morning & I’m so excited to have Niagara County Sheriffs partner with us, in collaboration with our friends at Niagara County SPCA. Our Pawsitive for Heroes program is NOW in the jail. The dogs will live in the jail, in the cells 24/7 with the incarcerated individuals (Veterans). With the help of one of our amazing trainers John Knoph, we will be in the jail constantly training. Every 10mos, the dogs will be pulled and handed to Veterans in #WNY who are medically referred to our program. We will be launching in two other state facilities in the coming months. Those locations will be announced then.

This AWESOME NEW up and coming service dog “Cody” is going to be doing amazing things. Cody came to us through our friends at the City of Buffalo SPCA. I have had some time to work with him and his temperament, demeanor, EVERYTHING about this guy is amazing. We have very exciting news coming next week about this guy and a few others. This has been in the works since 2018 and will be the first in #WNY to actually take place. We are ever so excited about our partners in this program. Stay tuned for more and you can follow Cody on his journey.

Happy Birthday!!!
The United States Coast Guard celebrates its 231st birthday today. The Coast Guard was created in 1790, when the first Congress authorized Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton to construct ten vessels, known as “revenue cutters,” to combat smuggling and enforce tariff laws. Our own Reni Bolyn retired after 22 yrs. in the Coast Guard! Semper Paratus! (Always Ready!)

Congrats to this year’s William E Kramp Jr Scholarship recipients! Henry’s on his way to #NiagaraUniversity to become a teacher. His dad served in the Navy. Nicole is from the southern tier & headed for Jamestown Community College on her way to becoming a P.A. Her father served in the Marines.

We are excited to provide the very first service dog (Hati) to US Army Veteran Ronald Brush of Brookfield PA. So many thank you’s go out to our Pennsylvania sponsors who are making it all possible. Thank you Kaleigh Bell for continuing to make our program be bigger & better. Thank you Punxsutawney Police Chief Matt Conrad for helping get this moving as well. We thank you all of you for your service to our country and our community.

WOW!!! What an amazing day/evening! It was sooo good to see everyone again. Thank you Town square Media for your continuous love and #support. Thank you to our 130 volunteers who showed up and made it all happen for everyone.

12 Gates Brewing Co. Comes Through Yet Again! Thanks so much to all who came out and listened to some awesome music and drank some amazing grog. Even Santa took a break from making toys to stop in!!

So much was learned at this years National Veterans Service Dog Conference. Ex.:Guest speakers from the Dept of Defense), VA, & American Kennel Club. Pawsitive for Heroes is about more than JUST providing a Veteran with a free service dog. We are about providing knowledge and info about rights as well.

Huge shout-out to Peg Hoffman for her generosity toward our Operation Backpack program! Peg donated tons of hand-made, adjustable masks including those pictured. The Malory’s also stopped by and dropped of 10 scientific calculators!!!! These items and this program saves our local Veteran families so much money and makes the inevitable school supply scavenger hunts a lot less stressful. Look for the Op. Backpack application on line starting Aug. 1st. Thanks to everyone who donates to all of our programs!!!!