For the third year in a row, the Knights of the Inferno motorcycle club has provided a local family with a holiday they will never forget.
On Sunday, December 14, the group, who spent from September through November selecting a needy family, showed up at the home of Bristol Township resident Alice Burke, a medically retired trauma nurse. The group showed up with enough presents to relight the spirit of Burke and her boyfriend’s three children and grandson.
Advertisements
After being born with a diseased lung, possibly due to her father’s Vietnam service and Agent Orange exposure, Burke developed Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) at the young age of 34. Burke, who worked for the last ten years at the Lower Bucks Hospitas emergency room as a registered nurse, was recently declared medically disabled by her doctor.
“This year was extra special because Alice was very popular amongst the entire EMS community,” said event organizer Jacqui Redner, who also serves on the Pennsbury School Board.
To make the holiday season more daunting, Burke’s boyfriend was recently injured at work – an injury that has left Burke and her family surviving off her disability check.
Advertisements
Burk, in a desperate measure to give her family a beautiful Christmas, first set up a GoFundMe account.
“I had no idea how I was going to be able to do Christmas for our family,” said Burke. “Our kids are good kids, they stay out of trouble, do great in school and don’t really ask for anything because they know money is tight. It broke my heart that I couldn’t get them something special this holiday.”
Advertisements
Burke and her boyfriend have two girls, one boy and a grandson – all who would have been left without a Christmas, if not for one firefighter seeing her post and enlisting the help of dozens.
“When they reached out to me and said that they wanted to help my family, I just broke down,” she said. “I was so humbled and so very grateful that words simply cannot explain the wave of emotion I felt. Every time I talked about it, I cried. I was amazed at the sheer generosity and kindness of people. These folks have restored my faith in the fact that there are still plenty of good people left in this world.”
On Sunday, motorcycle clubs Fire and Iron Station 139, The Unwanted, Red Knights of Levittown, Iron Order and Knights of Columbus, as well as fire stations of Newportville, Tullytown, Third District, Edgely, Bristol Borough Station 50 and the Bristol Township Police Department and Levittown Fairless Hills Rescue Squad greeted Burke and her family with everything they could have asked for and more.
Advertisements
“When everybody showed up on Sunday, I was stunned. I could not believe the outpouring of love from people! Some of them I knew, some of them I didn’t. They even brought us a Christmas tree,” said Burke. “Days later, I am still reeling from the experience. The love that day was palpable. To see my kids and grandkids smiling was worth its weight in gold.”
Burke, said she couldn’t possibly repay the groups for what they have done for her family, but that when she gets back on her feet, she will be there to do the same for another family at Christmas time.
Advertisements
“With all the bad that is in the world, when you are involved and see something like this, it restores your faith in humanity,” said Redner. “I don’t think there was a dry eye that day.”
Redner said the group, which is known heavily throughout their community for their charitable outreach, is already looking forward to next year. “It gets bigger every year,” she said.
Credit: Tom Stanton
