Former Flight Attendant In Maine Fundraising For 9/11 Tribute To Flight Crews

What do you do when something so massive and terrible happens to your friends and colleagues, and you are left behind to mourn them?

Retired flight attendant Paul Veneto knows exactly how that feels, through a simple schedule change he was spared being on board one of the 4 aircraft carriers that went down in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Veneto's family friend, David Morrissey, says Veneto has gone through several stages of grief, and ultimately found healing in making sure others know just how special his fellow flight attendants who died that day were.

"A long-term friend of my father's, from grade school, Paul Veneto, was supposed to be a flight attendant on United Flight 175 on 9/11. The night before, on the 10th, they had a schedule change, so he didn't end up on that flight."

"He knew most of the flight crew on that flight, and the other flights."

After the events of 9/11 happened, Veneto suffered from extreme survivor's guilt and fell on hard times.  For many years he turned to drugs to numb those feelings.

Eventually, he retired and got sober.

In the winter of 2020, when the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 not too far away, Morrissey said Veneto, who had come up to Maine to visit his childhood friend and go snowmobiling, shared that he felt like he needed to do something big, not only to commemorate the historic date but also the anniversary of his sobriety; he was going to honor his former colleagues and friends by doing what he'd done for decades before...only this time, it wouldn't be 30,000 feet in the air, but right on the ground.

"He looks at my father and one of their other friends and says 'Hey guys, I gotta do something big for the 20 year anniversary of 9/11...I'm gonna push a beverage cart from Logan Airport to Ground Zero.' And we're all sitting around thinking he was nuts. About a month later we all got a text message and it's a picture of him pushing a beverage cart around Boston Commons."

Veneto had reached out to United, and they hooked him up with a couple of beverage carts, which he later adorned with pictures and bios of his fallen colleagues. He took to walking around his hometown of Boston every day to train for what would eventually come to be called "Paulie's Push." Morrissey says the first year was quite the learning experience!

"They set out August 3rd, from Logan Airport. They had a whole ceremony and everything, with people from United, people from American, families of people whose loved ones had passed on 9/11...That year we had two hurricanes come up through Mass. in August 2021. One of them was the first day of his push. He pushed 18 miles through a hurricane that shut the whole city down!"

The next year, Veneto decided to do it again. This time he wanted to honor the flight that went down at the Pentagon. So he pushed his cart from Ground Zero to the Pentagon, a total of 30+ miles.

Morrissey says last year was Veneto's biggest push yet, which took him from Newark Airport to Shanksville, PA. He pushed the cart over 300 miles.

"To help him with fundraising, I got thinking about it between the 2nd and 3rd push. My mother used to do riding lessons out here at the barn for kids with disabilities, and she used to do barn dances to raise money for lessons so that kids who couldn't necessarily afford to pay for the lessons could still come. So I thought why don't we do a barn dance, and Pauie could come and the money could go towards Paulie's Push?"

So Morrissey teamed up with some local friends and businesses and put on the first annual barn dance fundraiser to benefit "Paulie's Push." There was live music, a mobile cash bar, food trucks, a silent auction, and plenty of opportunities for folks to come and meet Veneto and donate towards his cause.

Morrissey says they raised just about $5,000 for Paulie's Push. He says he'll be happy if they can break that initial record and do over 5 grand at this year's event.

"Last year we had 100-125 people. This year I'm hoping to get 150 people this year and push over the 5-grand mark into the 6-grand mark this year."

Morrissey says Veneto is arriving in Bangor and will be parking down by the waterfront Thursday afternoon, in an RV covered in Paulie's Push logos. He says Paulie will be pushing his cart, to train for the big event, all over downtown the next couple of days.

Veneto is set to be on hand at the barn dance, which is scheduled to take place at the West Wind Stables, 905 Pushaw Rd. in Glenburn, from 5 PM to 11 PM. There's a suggested donation of $5, with all sorts of fun planned for the evening. You can click here to find out more.

Morrissey says Veneto is set to do his final push, from Logan Airport to Ground Zero on August 18th.

This push will take him through Massachusettes, Connecticut, and New York, to honor the second plane to hit the World Trade Center, American Airlines Flight 11.