Carol Stream vets, leaders break ground on new memorial, but not 'done yet'
Jim Benzin was supposed to retire two years ago as the commander of Carol Stream's VFW Post.
But he won't step down until he finishes a mission for his fellow veterans, and especially for Army guys like Ted Callas, the last remaining World War II veteran of VFW Post VFW 10396.
"Ted, I'm glad you made it, my friend," Benzin said at the groundbreaking of Carol Stream's new veterans memorial Friday afternoon.
The job won't be over until Callas gets to see the finished plaza at the Ross Ferraro Town Center. Benzin and other members of a memorial task force have about $60,000 left to raise, but they're cautiously optimistic they can unveil the permanent tribute to military service on Memorial Day.
"We still have a ways to go with this project, but rest assured that this task force is not going to stop until we're 100 percent there," Park District Commissioner Jacqueline Jeffery said.
The groundbreaking itself, the ceremonial toss of the dirt by Benzin and village leaders, lasted a matter of seconds and didn't quite capture how long it's taken them to get to this point.
"We have been working on this project for well over two years," Jeffery said. "From the time that Jim came with his idea, we developed a concept. We developed another concept, and we've done a mass amount of fundraising."
Benzin's initial idea back in 2015 was to spruce up an existing tribute at Memorial Park. That humble suggestion led to the task force and plans for major improvements to the memorial. Then about a year ago, the group agreed to build the memorial at the Town Center, a village-owned site that offers more access.
"I want it used where you can pull up here with your family and get out with your grandkids," Mayor Frank Saverino told veterans at the gathering. "And we'll have a ramp to be able to get up here, where you'll be able to come up and spend some time and maybe tell them what you did and why this is here because we seem to forget what happened in the past."
But no one involved in the project will forget how it's become a symbol of community dedication. The volunteer group has raised enough money - more than $142,000 - to start construction and build roughly 90 percent of the new memorial with the exception of five granite monuments for each branch of the military.
"It's been painful at times to try and raise money," Saverino said. "People ask, 'Why are you having a problem raising $200,000?' Well, this isn't Naperville. It's not Barrington. We're a middle-class, faith-based, blue-collar community, and everybody on this task force is scratching for every dollar that we could get. We've held fundraiser after fundraiser."
Benzin gave a sense of the grass-roots nature of the fundraising, thanking a number of supporters: "from the mayor who organized fundraisers, to the elementary schoolchildren who dropped change in buckets, from the companies who write the big checks, to the families who honored the veterans by buying bricks, to the community members who dropped a dollar in the bucket at the summer concerts and who ate at the restaurants to support us."
The Rolling Thunder Illinois Chapter No. 1 also is donating a POW/MIA monument for the plaza between existing flagpoles and the Town Center's arch. So it was fitting, but just a coincidence, that the ceremony was held on National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
"Even though this memorial will honor them and their families and veterans, this day is really about you," Benzin told the well-attended gathering. "I have to admit I'm kind of surprised at this size of the crowd."
The group is making the final push to raise the remaining $60,000, most of which will cover the costs of the five engraved monuments. Saverino and Trustee Matt McCarthy are hosting "A Toast to Our Vets" fundraiser at Fox River Distilling in Geneva on Oct. 6. A portion of the proceeds from two park district events at Armstrong Park - the Fall 5K Stars & Stripes Shuffle on Sept. 30 and the Stars & Stripes Softball Adult Tournament on Oct. 6 - also will support the project.
"We aren't done yet," Benzin said.