Crowd packs Polish Hall for Heidi Behr scholarship fundraiser

Riverhead turned out in a big way for the annual Heidi Behr Memorial Scholarship Steak Night at Polish Hall last night.

A sellout crowd of more than 300 people feasted on classic Polish Hall “steak night” fare: a dinner of hand-cut, cooked-to-order steaks, mashed potatoes, green beans, tossed salad  and — of course — kielbasa and kraut, topped off by an ice cream dessert.

The scholarship was established by a community service group founded in 2009 called Heidi’s Helping Angels, named for Heidi Behr, the 23-year-old Riverhead Ambulance Corps volunteer who was killed in the line of duty in May 2005 when an ambulance transporting a cardiac patient crashed on the Main Road in Aquebogue. Behr and fellow EMT,  paid responder Bill Stone, 30, of Ridge, both perished in the accident.

Honorees of the 2014 event were fellow RVAC members Walker “Sonny” Turner and Betty Harris, as well as Jamesport Fire Department “firefighter of the year” Howard Waldman.

Turner, who passed away in April at age 83, was a 30-year RVAC volunteer who served as the corps chaplain and received its lifetime achievement award. His wife Hattie was on hand to accept the posthumous award. “It is a very wonderful honor that so many people in the community respected and honored him. He was so well-loved,” his widow said.

Harris, a 33-year veteran of RVAC, said there are so many members deserving of the honor. “Why me?” she asked. “It’s something I love to do and will continue to do as long as God allows me to,” she said. (Harris was feted by the corps with a lifetime achievement award in February. She reflected on her years of service in a RiverheadLOCAL interview during the RVAC installation dinner, where the award was presented.)

Waldman, who has served as a volunteer firefighter in the Jamesport Fire Department for 38 years saved two lives in 2013. Last March, he saved an 84-year-old woman he found on the floor of her Jamesport home when he went there to make an Easter flower delivery. Then in October, he witnessed an SUV become submerged in the L.I. Sound off Iron Pier, trapping its driver inside. He pulled a small boat out to the SUV and pulled the driver out of a partially open window. The Jamesport Fire Department honored him as its Firefighter of the Year for 2013.

Former Riverhead supervisor Jim Stark,  one of the organizers of Heidi’s Helping Angels, said the young woman in whose memory the group is named “epitomized community service.”  Behr “gave her life to community service,” he said. The scholarship is awarded in Behr’s memory to two community-minded students each year.

Entertainment for the evening was provided by the effervescent tax assessor-turned-auctioneer, Mason Haas, who auctioned off foursomes at eight local golf courses. He also announced the winners of an almost-endless stream of raffle prizes — everything from framed photographs to 5-pound bags of locally grown potatoes.