(KTVI)- There is one week left to help Hardee’s raise money for veterans. Their Stars for Heroes fundraising campaign helps customers reach out to military families and veterans. When you go to your area Hardee’s restaurant, make a $1 donation and you’ll receive a coupon and your name on the wall.
Over the past two years, Stars for Heroes has raised close to $2 million. This money has gone to support more than 40 military charities, including the Dream Foundation Military Dreams, USA Cares, Homes for Our Troops, and The Mission Continues.
Mitch Meacham, 51, of Burlington, didn’t realize he’d been living with a tumor the size of a small woman’s fist on his pancreas until 2006, and by then he was told it was too late.
That’s the news thousands of Americans hear when they first go to the doctor complaining of symptoms, since patients can’t usually tell there’s anything wrong until their pancreatic cancer has spread to other organs, according to the American Cancer Society.
This year alone, the American Cancer Society estimates about 45,220 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and 38,460 will die from the disease.
“By the time it’s diagnosed,” it’s pretty serious, said Tracy Berger, medical family therapist with the Duke Cancer Patient Support Program at Duke University Medical Center. “Mitch was one of those people.”
U.S. Army veteran Nat Poncio returned home to Texas this week after traveling with his family to Las Vegas – a final dream fullfilled by funds raised by Carl’s Jr.’s Stars for Heroes campaign and donated to Dream Foundation, the first and largest national wish-granting organization for adults.
CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc., parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, is a longtime partner with Dream Foundation through CKE’s annual Stars for Heroes fundraiser, which supports military and veteran charities. The Stars for Heroes 2014 campaign is running in participating Carl’s Jr. Texas restaurants today through June 19. To participate, restaurant guests donate $1 in support of military charities. For each $1 donation, guests receive a commemorative “I am supporting military veterans and families” patriotic star-shaped cut out to personalize and place on display in the restaurant. They also receive restaurant coupons valued at more than $10 to use toward future purchases. Support from Stars for Heroes allows Dream Foundation to serve the final wishes of military personal, veterans and their families. In 2013, Stars for Heroes served the final dreams of 107 deserving veterans!
CLOVER — The poet lay in her bed Thursday morning, dying.
But on this day – in spite of the cancer in her breast, spine, liver and lung – cancer lost.
Linda Davis, the poet who wrote on yellow legal pads, won.
Her loving husband Richard – who is dutifully taking care of his wife of 30 years while she fights to live – tried not to be excited but failed. A package had come all the way from California, from the nonprofit Dream Foundation.