photo by: Niamh Coomey

Attendees of “A Night to Remember” gather with friends, family and snacks Friday at Wheeling Park’s ice rink to celebrate local veterans and raise money for Helping Heroes.

WHEELING — Hundreds came out to Helping Heroes’ annual “A Night to Remember” fundraiser Friday night to support the local nonprofit focused on supporting area veterans in need — raising $50,000 for the organization’s new, permanent facility downtown Wheeling.

Helping Heroes drew its largest crowd yet since the organization’s inception 12 years ago, selling almost 400 tickets. Last year, they raised $27,000, the most that had been raised up until this point, an amount that nearly doubled this year.

This was all thanks to the sponsors this year as well as more community members purchasing tickets, Helping Heroes founder Jeremy Harrison said.

“It’s a combination of both. The sponsors are stepping up a little bit and I think last year we sold 325 tickets and this year we sold 384. So we have a lot of people,” he said.

The event, held at the ice rink at Wheeling Park, drew attendees from all walks of life, from veterans in uniform and their family and friends to community members interested in supporting the cause, enjoying some good food and participating in activities.

There were multiple prize wheels, raffles and games that attendees could participate in, with prizes like a signed guitar from Taylor Swift and a signed Kansas City Chiefs jersey were some of the big-ticket items, among many others.

The vast majority of the funds raised from the event will go toward the new facility that Helping Heroes has been working on building out for the last several years, a space in downtown Wheeling where they hope to expand their services and provide more opportunities for veterans in the area.

This will include more counselors and therapy staff, as well as potentially a thrift store and military-themed coffee shop in the building.

Harrison said he is looking forward to being able to provide all of the organization’s services in-house at the new facility and having fifteen, comfortable long-term stay rooms available for veterans in need.

“We’re all kind of stuck in the basement of the church right now. And we love that we have that space but [our staff] need a new office. They deserve a new office and our veterans deserve a nice place to stay,” he said.

Harrison and his wife started Helping Heroes 12 years ago and he said it has been touching to see how much their impact has grown. The room was packed Friday night with people wanting to support local veterans.

“All the people here are supporting the organization that my wife and I started back in [2013] and we just had an idea and now it’s grown to 400 people knowing about what we do here tonight, celebrating what we are doing and being a big part of the community now,” he said.