In a Columbus Avenue office across from the Crestwood Metro-North station, Edmond J. Boran was answering phone calls one recent afternoon. A retired FBI agent in New York City and former head of security at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he had traveled from his Manhattan home to Tuckahoe to help raise public awareness of the foundation he serves as president.
The caller was an official at the Federal Air Marshal Service reaching out on behalf of the family of a colleague who had died in a motorcycle accident. He told Boran he would be sending the man”™s death certificate to the Tuckahoe office, headquarters since 2012 of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation (MCLEF). The victim had one child.
Once the death certificate arrived, Susan H. Boulhosa, the nonprofit”™s part-time executive director and only paid employee, would begin a process that has benefited thousands of children of parents who have died while serving in the Marine Corps or as federal law enforcement officers. Usually within four to six weeks, the surviving parent will be notified that a $30,000 bank account has been established in their child”™s name at Merrill Edge, an investment division of Bank of America. The foundation”™s deposits are intended to assist in financing children”™s college education and can be used when they turn 18.
“They”™re encouraged to use it for their higher education,” said Boulhosa, “but we really don”™t have ownership at that point.” The foundation is looking to develop a database to track recipients and how they used the money, she said.
“We”™ve helped 3,400 children over the last 19 years,” Boran said. This year the foundation has made about $2.2 million in contributions, with 24 children still scheduled to receive aid, he said. Boran stressed that more than 98 percent of donations received by the foundation is used to aid those children and families it serves.
“Now we”™re approaching $64 million” in total donations, Boulhosa said. Of that total, about $38 million has gone to Marine Corps families, she said.
“In the Benghazi incident,”™ said Boulhosa, referring to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya that killed the American ambassador and a Foreign Service officer, “we took care of four of the children.”
Closer to home, MCLEF opened $30,000 scholarship accounts for three children of Peter Becerra, a criminal investigator with the Westchester County District Attorney”™s Office who died of cancer in 2012. At the time of his death, Becerra had been working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on assignment to a joint terrorism task force.
Although the number of scholarships rose at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aid is not limited to children of active-duty Marines who died in combat. “You”™d be surprised how many Marines die in car accidents or motorcycle accidents or other incidents around the globe,” Boran said.
The foundation in recent years has expanded its mission to provide medical equipment and financial support to Marines severely wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to children of active-duty Marines with mental or physical disabilities. Boran said more than 200 Segways, the two-wheeled electric vehicles, were given by the foundation to disabled Marines, some of whom have been helped too by its purchases of wheelchair-accessible ramps.
The retired FBI agent answered the ringing phone again. The caller was seeking the foundation”™s help in a buying a child”™s cranial band. Though recommended by physicians, the equipment is not an expense covered by government insurance. The helmets are worn by infants born with deformed heads and the treatment typically requires three helmets as the child grows, Boran said.
At $2,500 a helmet, even after a military discount, “It”™s about seven and-half thousand,” said Boran. “When you”™re only making $24,000 a year, it becomes a major discussion” for military families.
A Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and Bronx native, Boran joined the FBI soon after leaving military service in 1970. He was assigned to the same squad as James K. Kallstrom, another former Marine who became head of the FBI”™s New York office as an assistant director of the agency and who would be called from retirement to serve as Gov. George Pataki”™s counterterrorism chief in the aftermath of 9/11.
Boran and Kallstrom soon discovered the FBI, like most federal law enforcement agencies, included many Marine veterans in its ranks. They formed the FBI-Marine Corps Association, a group that led to the creation of the current foundation and is now being “resurrected” at the FBI office in New York City, which currently employs 100 former Marines, Boran said.
The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation was created in 1995. Kallstrom, its founding chairman, continues to head its board of directors. Its mission to aid the children of Marines is an extension of the Corps”™ “leave no man behind” motto, Boulhosa said.
About two months after the foundation”™s start, the deadly bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by domestic terrorists launched it into action. Given national prominence by conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, MCLEF was flooded with donations from Americans, many of whom were children sending in their saved dimes and pennies, Boulhosa said. The foundation distributed 32 scholarships totaling $260,300 to children of federal employees who were among the 168 victims killed in the bombing.
Boulhosa said the foundation has done no marketing until recently and largely relies on individual donors and 12 annual fundraisers held around the country to fund its mission. “There”™s not a large amount of corporate involvement,” Boulhosa said. “It”™s something we”™re trying to look to expand on.”
The bulk of the foundation”™s income is raised at its all-volunteer events, topped by its annual Semper Fidelis Gala at The Waldorf-Astoria. “And we have a tremendous loyal following of people who send $25 a month and family foundations who find out about us,” Boulhosa said.
“The biggest thing is getting the word out. Once people know about us, they love us,” she said.
