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Elks campaign pushes on for wounded warriors
Oliverio to talk at Saturday's ball and dinner at lodge in California
Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by Jesse Yeatman
Iraq veteran Lt. Denis Oliverio, right, runs with his wife, Kate, and his 3-year-old daughter, Natalie, in last Saturday's 5K race in California to benefit the Elks Lodge 2092's Wounded Warrior fundraising campaign. Oliverio will deliver a speech at a charity ball hosted by the Elks this Saturday to benefit the campaign.
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Six months into a year-long campaign to raise $20,000 for a group that helps rehabilitate wounded war veterans, Lodge 2092 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in California has raised more than half of its goal.
John Winters, chairman of the Elk's fundraising committee for the Wounded Warrior Project, said the campaign has raised approximately $11,000. "It's going better than expected," Winters said Monday.
The group raised approximately $3,000 last weekend with a two-day fishing tournament that drew 18 boats and a 5K race at Wildewood shopping center which drew 80 participants.
This weekend, the Elks will host a charity ball with dinner, dancing and a few guest speakers.
"We got started in May," Winters said. "This will mark about the halfway point of the campaign."
The Elks have several more events planned, including another fishing tournament, in which injured veterans from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda will participate.
The schedule also includes a bowling tournament, a music festival and comedy night before wrapping up in May 2010.
Marine Lt. Denis Oliverio, a wounded Iraq veteran who spoke at the Elks' kickoff event for the campaign in May, will also speak at Saturday's ball. Oliverio said that the Elks' fundraising effort is different, because it is not a one-off event, but a series of events with cumulative effects.
"I don't think this is going to be a linear curve," Oliverio said Thursday of the Elks' fundraising efforts. The more events the group has, the more people are paying attention and the more money will be raised, he said.
Oliverio said he was asked to attend Saturday's event and tell the story of the AK-47 round that slammed into his upper left arm and spun him around in his turret as his Marine tank platoon engaged insurgents in 2005 on the Syrian border in Iraq.
The bullet shattered his upper arm bone and cut a vital artery. In four days after he was wounded, Oliverio underwent three surgeries, and, over the next several months, he underwent 11 more surgeries, including the installation of three titanium plates to reconstruct his shattered arm.
Oliverio told this story in May and talked about how the nonprofit Wounded Warrior Project supplied him with necessities and helped him rehabilitate after the incident.
This time, however, Oliverio said he is "going a little bit deeper into the details that people wouldn't know" about recovering from a battlefield injury, including the deterioration in mind and body that can occur once the joy of returning home subsides.
Oliverio said people see reports of wounded veterans bravely overcoming their injuries, but he said that image is "just the tip of the iceberg" of what those veterans endure.
Oliverio said he will ask the question, "What about the darker side?"
If you go
Lodge 2092 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks will host its Wounded Warrior charity ball Saturday at the lodge on Fire Department Lane in California. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and dinner will begin at 6:30. The cost per guest is $30. For more information or to register, visit bpoe2092.org.
