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Blue Ridge Honor Flight feeds medical front line

Chief Nursing Officer Carol Stefaniak and RNs Erika Prezas, Mary Ann Fischer and Jake Freeman greet the Blue Ridge Honor Flight lunch delivery.

By Lightning Reports, Published: May 1, 2020

Blue Ridge Honor Flight volunteers are used to honoring soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who served on the front lines in combat. On Thursday they turned their efforts to workers on the front lines of coronavirus treatment, the world war that is consuming health care providers.

HonorAir cofounder Jeff Miller, Mary Beth Burns and Jimmy Miller drove to Pardee Hospital's emergency room at noon Thursday to distribute two large boxes of sandwiches, fried chidken, chocolate-covered donuts and other items for front-line medical personnel.

"When we talked to the head nurse, evidently a lot of people like Hendough," Jeff Miller said, of the chicken and donut place on Busy Bend. "We’re just going to use local restaurants."

Since the coronavirus crisis has grounded the honor flights to Washington for veterans, the organization decided that it would use existing funding to feed front-line health. With the help of Jim Miller, a grading contractor and no relation to Jeff, Blue Ridge Honor Flight had been sponsoring once-a-month free breakfasts at Dixie Diner and wings at South Rock.

"Jimmy Miller goes out and raises most of the money himself and usually writes a big fat check himself," he said. "All of us have to be doing something. We can’t just sit and wait for 2021." Feeding today's heroes — workers of the ER and intensive care unit — seemed to be the right choice.

"We just call it feeding the front line," Miller said.

On hand to receive the boxes and thank the donors were Chief Nursing Officer Carol Stefaniak, ER nurses Erika Prezas and Mary Ann Fischer and ICU nurse Jake Freeman.

Blue Ridge Honor Flight will return to the Pardee UNC Health ER on Tuesday night, when late-shift doctors, nurses and other medical personnel will get Chick-Fil-A.