Why Whatron?
Why Wharton?
Wharton, Texas is a small town south of Houston; it has a population of about 8,700 people. Wharton was hit extremely hard by flooding during hurricane Harvey. In fact, about 5000 people were directly affected by flooding. I’m not from Wharton. I’m not even from Texas. I’m from New York City, but I do have a connection to this community.
In 2014 President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor (MOH) to Master Sergeant (MSgt) Michael Pena USA (posthumously) for his actions in Korea in 1950. MSgt Pena’s grandson, John Pena, was one of my TOW gunners in First Battalion Fourth Marines back in the mid-90’s. John Pena and two other Marines had decided that they wanted to honor MSgt Pena by walking one mile for each year that has passed since MSgt Pena act of courage in all 64 miles. I was asked to join the team of Valor Walkers and so, in June 2014 the 4 of us tracked the back roads of Wharton and other nearby towns. As we walked through the back country roads of southwest Texas, I saw so much, I witnessed pride…pride that Mike Pena was their hero, pride that he walked their streets, pride that he went to their schools and pride that he called that part of Texas Home.
I’ve told this story of Mike Pena a thousand times in the past few years, so as I watched the news about the destruction brought on by hurricane Harvey, I knew that I had to somehow be involved in restoring hope to a people who have so little and lost so much.
Consulting with my Marine Corps JROTC cadets, my district Superintendent and our leadership team, we decided that we wanted to help. Our winter vacation was far enough away for the recovery operation to become fully engaged and for needs to be identified. In order to make our efforts a real impact on the community we’ve built 5 teams of ten cadets each. As a trade school our cadets have skills that the average high school student doesn’t. Each of our teams will be able to accomplish a list of tasks, from hanging sheet rock to interior/ exterior painting.
In mid-September we requested permission from our school committee for 50 cadets and 5 chaperones to travel to Texas. With permission granted, we started planning in earnest. We have two contacts on the ground in Texas that have been developing the work projects; to date we have 7 homes that we will be assisting with. We expect this list to grow to 15 homes by the time we arrive in February. We are also partnering with the Air Force JROTC unit from Wharton County High School to complete a school based project. While in Wharton we’ll be calling the Boys & Girls Club home and our meals will come from the Wharton Junior Community College.
Two weeks ago we conducted a 10 mile March-A-Thon with 190 cadets as part of our fundraising drive.
We called our fundraiser “Marching for Texas” each cadet was tasked to find acquiring sponsorship for each mile walked.
To date we have raised over $37 thousand dollars, and due to direct funding support from the the United States Marine Corp for food and transportation we will be able to use most of our fundraising dollars for building supplies. We are honored to undertake this effort in the memory of Master Sergeant Pena, We are humbled to be welcomed to the Wharton community and honored to undertake this effort in the memory of Master Sergeant Pena.