Miami organization seeks help in burying homeless veterans

January 14, 2009 @ 9:49PM

Miami organization seeks help in burying homeless veterans

By Carlos Miller -...

While the following article has nothing to do with photography or much to do with police violating our First Amendment rights, it is an important cause being spearheaded by a friend of mine, Charles Buford, so I’m doing my part in getting the word out.

A Miami veteran’s organization is asking the public for help in burying homeless veterans whose bodies have gone unclaimed in the morgue, including one veteran who was found beaten to death behind a bus bench last November.

Make A Wish Veterans, an organization founded by disabled Vietnam veteran Charles Buford, has already shipped the body of one murdered homeless veteran back to his family in Salt Lake City.

But right now there are four unclaimed bodies who deserve a proper funeral and burial, said Buford.

“All of these veterans were homeless,” he said. “Two were killed and three died of natural causes.”

The remaining veterans were Ernest Holmon, who was found murdered behind a bus bench, and John Joseph Sweet, Henry Winger and Pedro DeAguero.

The fifth veteran was Todd Hill, who who was killed in December while he slept on a bus bench and shipped back to his family in Salt Lake City.

Besides providing a proper burial for these veterans, Make A Wish Veterans plans to help existing homeless veterans off the streets by providing housing for them.

“We need to get our veterans out of harm’s way,” said Buford.

Make A Wish Veterans has already scheduled a funeral for the veterans at 11 a.m. on Jan. 24 at the American Legion Post 29, 6445 NE 7th Ave.

“We invite the general public to attend,” he said.

The burial is planned for Jan. 26th at the South Florida VA National Cemetery in Lake Worth.

To donate, click on www.vetsunited.org and click on “donate” at the top of the page or send a check to Make A Wish Veterans, 6445 NE 7th Ave. And if you do donate, tell them you read about it here.

Comments

Anonymous

3 years ago

Carlos, do you know the cost of a burial?

Anonymous

3 years ago

R.E.F.

I’m not sure but hopefully someone from Make A Wish Veterans will stop by and answer that question.

Anonymous

3 years ago

Thank you, Carlos, for posting our information and we also thank Real Estate Feast for their interest.
The funeral for the four homeless veterans will take place on the 24th of January, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. at the American Legion Harvey Seeds Post #29, located at 6445 N.E. 7th Ave., Miami, FL 33138.
Make A Wish Veterans, Inc. and VetsUnited.org must raise $20,000 to cover funeral and burial costs. All contributions are tax deductible.
Those who choose to donate online may do so by going to http://www.vetsunited.org and click on the donate button at the bottom of the posted announcement. All others may donate to “MAKE A WISH VETERANS, INC.” at any REGIONS BANK location. All checks by mail should be payable to “MAKE A WISH VETERANS, INC.,” and mailed to:

Regions Bank
Edison Branch
c/o Make A Wish Veterans, Inc.
Attn: Jennifer Columbus
6013 N.W. 7th Ave.
Miami, FL 33127

On behalf of all concerned veterans of South Florida, we thank in advance for your moral support and your contributions.

John Burton
Operations Director
Make A Wish Veterans, Inc.

Anonymous

3 years ago

To Who this may concern,

My name is Cheryl and my husband Bear Hendrickson is a veteran! We are homeless on the streets of miami, he is waiting on his disability hearing which still may take another year for them to get to him, he has been waiting three years now. We have a travel trailer we could stay in but where it is parked in a backyard of a friends house we can’t stay in it. We also have a jeep that needs minor repairs and we could go stay at families place while we wait on disability. We just need a little help to get there.Please can you help us get off these streets please. Thank you
Cheryl
my email is cherieeeeee2000@yahoo.com

Anonymous

3 years ago

Carlos, we have buried two of the four veterans however, we still have two more to bury and we are still trying to raise funds as of 23 May 2009 we have raised $9700.00 and still have to raise another $4600.00 if any of your readers could help this would be most helpful.

Charles

Anonymous

2 years ago

These are Veterans. Why are they homeless in the first place? The Military should bury their own. This is sad.