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To Boston-area sheet metal gropus have eupported veterans and their families for more than two decades.
Here is the story.
It was the winter of 1991 when JeffChase made a motion to divert SMACNA advertising funds to the families of American troops serving in Iraq as part of Operation Desert Storm.
Chase, president of Cox Engineering Co., is a member of the Sheet Metal and Air-Conditioning Contractors' National Association's Boston chapter, a New England trade association of union sheet metal and air-conditioning contractors. At their chapter meeting in a Boston hotel in 1991, Chase made a motion.
"A lot of our employees and office staffwere being called to serve in Desert Storm," Chase said.
The company had been talking about buying advertising with the Celtics and Bruins professional sports teams to promote SMACNA Boston.
"It just came to me at the end of the meeting: Why not give that money to the families of our troops instead," he recalled. "I just threw the idea out to the 25 SMACNA contractors at the meeting, and nobody dissented. It was unanimous - we didn't need a formal vote."
The program stopped with the end of the Gulf War. But in March 2003, SMACNA Boston decided to revive it.
Helping
Today, SMACNA Boston uses money from its general operating fund to support military families, whether its member is deployed or actively serving at home.
"Each family receives $900 a month," Chase said. "SMACNA donates $500 and the other $400 comes from (Sheet Metal Workers union) Local 17. Today, there are up to 15 families we are supporting at any...