Nationwide village rallies to support veteran

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Had former WWL-TV anchor Karen Swensen been able to suppress an overwhelming urge on Memorial Day for Snickers-flavored Coffee mate creamer, she may never have bumped into 90-year-old Air Force veteran Dillon McCormick, pushing a line of shopping carts through the Winn-Dixie parking lot in 90-degree heat, like a 125-pound right tackle for the Saints.

Swensen, who left WWL two years ago to form her new company, Life’s About Change, has this boundless love affair with coffee. She had run out of her secret Snickers sauce, a guilty pleasure she allows herself as a reward for diligently following her daily walking routine.

“It was the coffee creamer that had me going in there – the kind with all the hydrogenated oils in it that you’re not supposed to touch,” Swensen said, laughing.

The Metairie Winn-Dixie always carries it.

“But the other thing is, he wasn’t supposed to be there,” Swensen said. “I learned later that he usually just works on Sundays, and that was Memorial Day, and he was filling in for somebody.”

Swensen first spotted McCormick pushing his cart train while she headed into the store. It troubled her. She thought to herself, why was this man, at his advanced age, being forced to do outdoor calisthenics on a volcanic asphalt parking lot in the midst of a triple-digit heat index?

When she came out with her creamer, Swensen was hoping to spy McCormick, but he had vanished. Swensen reluctantly slid into her car and pulled out of the parking lot, but just then, something from her Catholic childhood training seized her.

“One of my sisters-in-law is always telling me, ‘You always think everything is a sign,’ and I go, ‘That’s how I roll!’” Swensen said.

Swensen directed her car back into the parking lot and made a bargain with God.

“I couldn’t leave,” Swensen said. “I was thinking, ‘There’s got to be something we can do to help this man,’ so I sat in the car, with my groceries in the back seat, and I literally thought, ‘All right, God, you’ve got 10 minutes. If I find him in 10 minutes, I’ll know I’m supposed to help him. If not, then I’ll go on my merry way.’”

The creamer wouldn’t stay cold forever.

Then, at eight minutes on the God meter, the tiny man in the orange safety vest and the black Winn-Dixie cap came trundling around her rear-view mirror, herding carts into an obedient line.

Like any reformed journalist – maybe it was the Holy Spirit – Swensen whipped out her cell phone and started shooting video, first from inside her car.

“I kept thinking about the other shoppers because I was clearly videotaping people as they walked by,” Swensen said. “And then I was videotaping good Samaritans, because there were several.”

Swensen had not cleaned her windshield in a while, so she knew the videos would turn out to be too fuzzy. That’s when she hopped out and started videotaping McCormick “from between cars.”

Her phone even caught one of the good Samaritans, a 73-year-old man named Glen Labella, jumping in to help McCormick corral the carts and push them into the shaded area near the front entrance.

“Matthew 7:12,” Labella said. “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

Meanwhile, Swensen introduced herself to McCormick, asked him his age and why he was doing this.

“To eat,” McCormick said, indicating his cart job, which he had done for 27 years, helped supplement his $1,100 Social Security income. He needed $2,500 a month to pay his bills.

When Swensen drove home, she suddenly found herself on deadline again.

In three hours, she wrote a 325-word narrative about McCormick’s military service and work ethic and enlisted former WWL colleagues Dominic Massa and Bob Parkinson to piece together a parking lot video from the clips she had shot on her phone.

That formed the basis of her first-ever GoFundMe account, with the snappy news headline: “Help U.S. Air Force Veteran DILLON MCCORMICK retire at 90!!!”

And, then, she pressed send.

“I am the least technologically savvy human being on the planet,” Swensen said. “My idea of a charity fund-raiser was selling Girl Scout cookies. I just bought all the cookies.

“It happened so quickly in terms of it going viral. I was on the GoFundMe page, rereading it as if I were editing my own stuff – I didn’t even know I had put it up – when my cell phone vibrated across the table. I ignored it for a second or two, and when I looked at it, it was Tommy Cvitanovich of Drago’s. And he said, ‘Karen, I see something about a fund-raiser for a veteran. If this is legit, I’m in.’”

In 24 hours, the GoFundMe appeal – fueled by retweeting from former WWL anchor Hoda Kotb – raised $222,000 from more than 5,000 people, with most of the contributions in the $25 and $50 range. When Swensen capped the drive on June 6, it had raised $244,471 from 5,644 donors. One of the donors was a cast member of the “Real Housewives of Orange County.”

On June 11, Swensen went with McCormick to help handle the details of the love that had been poured out on his behalf. The husband of another former WWL colleague, Lucy Bustamante, is a retired Navy SEAL, and they are helping to see if McCormick is entitled to any other veterans benefits.

In reflecting on the tsunami of love, Swensen hopes the case of Dillon McCormick proves a point to those in a polarized world who have surrendered what they believe is a fairy-tale notion of the goodness of people.

“It confirms my faith in humanity and that we are so united when we need to be,” Swensen said. “We’ve made so much about all of the division, and I think we’re all exhausted from it. But to see everybody of all stripes coming together to help one person instantly just showed that our priorities are still intact. I think people are helping people, and they’re doing it quietly. There’s more generosity out there than we know. People are taking care of their neighbors. 

“That man who was running to the aid of Mr. McCormick in the parking lot was 73. He had no idea he was going to be named in any of the articles. He just did it because it was the right thing to do.”

McCormick told Swensen he intends to keep working, even if it’s just one day a week, because it keeps him moving and active. His mother lived until she was 104. He hopes to bequeath some of his windfall to St. Louis King of France Parish in Bucktown in gratitude to God for the goodness of strangers.

He’s also become something of a late-blooming celebrity.

“My favorite thing when I saw him the next day were these two ladies – who weren’t doing this for the camera – who came up to him and were taking selfies with him,” Swensen said. “That was like the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Almost as sweet as Snickers Coffee mate.

“I think there’s a lot more kindness, generosity and compassion than we know,” Swensen said. “It just doesn’t get the attention.”

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