Riverfront 24 aids ‘Homefront’ group in mission to help veterans

His voice has grown weak. So have like the legs that have carried him for more than 70 years, forcing him to rely on a walker to steady his gait and keep him mobile.

Parkinson’s Disease will do that.

When Andy Irvine was diagnosed with the incurable progressive nervous system disorder 12 years ago, he led a very active life. The Southampton resident worked as an auto mechanic and long-distance trucker.

Doctors believe his Parkinson’s was caused by exposure to Agent Orange while on active duty in Vietnam. The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange, an herbicide, in Vietnam. Th veterans administration recognizes Parkinson’s and a host of other diseases and health problems as “presumptive diseases” associated with Agent Orange.

Irvine can’t pinpoint with certainty when he might have been exposed, but he remembers being near “bombs” dropping in the jungle followed by a mist in the air.
Today at age 73, he struggles with basic tasks and has a hard time getting around on his own.

“I want to go and I can’t go,” he says — though his medication helps him move his walker around at a pretty good clip.

On Sunday, Irvine did one lap around the Riverfront 24 half-mile course, accompanied by longtime friend Joanne Stratton.

“You just can’t let it beat you down,” Irvine said.

Coming out to support the Riverfront 24 Endurance Run/Walk was important to Irvine. The fifth annual event held this weekend in downtown Riverhead was a fundraiser for Suffolk County Homefront, a grassroots nonprofit organization that helps veterans and deployed military personnel. The group recently helped Irvine by building a deck and two ramps at his Southampton home.

“It means so much to me. I can get out to my yard now,” Irvine said. He still enjoys gardening.

Suffolk County Homefront obtained donations of materials from the Riverhead Home Depot and donated labor from Robert Crouse Construction and Ed Chorzepka. They also rounded up volunteers to help build the ramps and deck.

“We do whatever we can to help veterans in need,” Suffolk County Homefront founder and president Cindy Dickson said. “We’ve never turned any one away.”

Dickson started the organization ater her 25-year-old cousin, Marine Cpl. Matthew Dillon, was killed in action while on his second tour of duty in Iraq in 2006.

“After he was killed, I wanted to do something to help out,” she said.

The all-volunteer Suffolk County Homefront is run by Dickson and her husband Steven, who live in Ridge. “We’re truly grass roots,” Dickson said. It relies solely on donations for funds to help veterans, active military and their families.

The group has helped veterans pay their rent or make car payments. It’s helped pay for food. It’s helped the widow and children of a young Marine who completed his tour of duty and then lost his life to cancer. The organization’s good works, detailed on its website, are many and varied. http://suffolkcountyhomefront.org/missions-accomplished.html

“I can’t say enough good things about these people,” said Irvine’s friend Stratton. “It really restores your faith in humanity.”

Riverfront24 founder Chris Cuddihy, a 59-year-old grandfather from Riverside, started the run on Veterans Day in 2010 as a way to raise money for veterans. That first year, he ran it alone. The next year, he was joined my more than 120 others. The event grew, but this year the number of runners was halved, Cuddihy said yesterday afternoon. He thought the 42-degree overnight temperatures had something to do with the decline.

“But it was still a whole lot of fun,” he said. “And this man is a true inspiration,” Cuddihy said, clapping Irvine on the back.

To donate to Suffolk County Homefront, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, visit the group’s website.