Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Frank Siller, chairman and CEO of Tunnels 2 Tower Foundation to talk about how they are helping surviving families of first responders obtain mortgage-free homes and tonights Never Forget Parade in Downtown Nashville.
Leahy: On the line right now, Frank Siller, the chairman and CEO of Tunnel 2 Towers Foundation. You can find them on the web at t2t.org. Frank, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.
Siller: Thanks Mike for having me on today.
Leahy: Frank, people are familiar with you. A lot of television advertisements. You talk about the great talented Tunnels 2 Tower Foundation and your reason for getting involved of course. Tell our listeners why you founded Tunnel 2 Towers.
Siller: Well, my brother was a New York City firefighter who, on September 11, 2001, was on his way home from his night shift in squad one in Brooklyn.
He was on his way home to play golf with myself, my brother George, my brother Russ, and heard on his radio scanner that the towers were hit. And what do first responders do?
What do the firefighters do? What do the police officers do? And what do our military do? They run right towards the danger. They don’t run away.
And that’s exactly what my brother did. He went back to his firehouse, got his gear, he drove to the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. And that’s a tunnel that connects Brooklyn with lower New York City.
And it was closed for security reasons. So he strapped 60 pounds of fire gear on his back and he ran through that tunnel, which is almost 2 miles long, with 60 pounds of gear up West Street, into the South Tower, up those stairs.
And while saving other people’s lives, he gave up his own. He was our little brother, he was the youngest of seven, he was married, and he was a father of five.
And we knew that we had to do something. So we started this foundation. The Tunnel 2 Towers Foundation, to honor him and all those who perished that day.
Leahy: You have put together since you founded Tunnels 2 Towers Foundation, you provided 450 mortgage-free homes to first responders, veterans, and their families.
And tonight there will be a parade here, the Never Forget Parade in downtown Nashville. Tell us about that. When is it going to start? When is it going to end? And there’s a concert there as well.
Siller: Yes. So the parade starts at we line up around 6:00 pm. 6:30 pm we’re going to have 100 bagpipers. Many of those are my buddies from New York City who are coming down with firefighters and they’re going to do it with the Nashville Fire Department.
And we’re going to march right over to the Wild Horse Saloon. And we’re going to have a concert there tonight. And we’re going to honor these great first responders and our Gold Star widows and families and our catastrophic league service members.
We have the likes of Willie Shaw and Lee Bryce. Lee is a great friend of the foundation. As a matter of fact, he just made an announcement that on his tour this year, he’s going to donate one dollars, one dollars for every ticket that he sells on his tour.
This whole year. So Lee Bryce has been a great partner and friend of the Tunnel 2 Towers Foundation, Darryl Worely. Darryl has been up in New York singing out our big event that we have every year, the last Sunday in September where we have 40,000 people run through the same tunnel as my brother did. That’s always in September.
Bradley Gilbert and Old Dominion. So it’s a great lineup. And we are there. And the tickets that we gave out, we gave out free tickets to all our military and first responders from this area.
Leahy: By the way, if you go to Tennesseestar.com, we have a story about this tonight. The headline is Tunnel 2 Towers Foundation to host Never Forget Parade in concert Friday in Nashville. Our original all-star panelists in studio with us, Crom Carmichael has a question for you, Frank Siller.
Carmichael: Frank, I think one of the most impressive things about your organization is the tiny amount that it uses to administer the good work that you do.
If somebody gives $100, how much of that goes to the houses of the people who need it? And how much of it do you use for administration? How do you do it for such a tiny amount?
Siller: We’re blessed that we have tens of thousands of volunteers. I’m actually a volunteer. I’m the chairman and CEO. I don’t get paid nor my siblings do. We don’t take a salary or all the board members.
We want to honor my brother in the proper way. And over 95 cents of every dollar. And I just signed this year’s tax returns yesterday, as a matter of fact, and it’s 95.1 percent, to be exact, goes to our programs back to these great heroes.
So when we asked people to donate $11 a month and that is really what we’re asking Americans to do because most Americans could do that and join us on our mission to take care of catastrophic service members that take care of gold star families and former first responder families that die in the line of duty, that leave young kids and young family behind.
I think it’s a promise that we should make to all these great Americans who protect our communities and our country. So when they donate their $11 a month, they know that it’s going to go to help these great people, not to me, not to my salary. I don’t have one.
And another thing, I think it’s just so important and why I believe the work we’re doing resonates with a lot of Americans. They see where the money is going, meaning it goes to a mortgage.
The biggest expense that any of us will ever have is our mortgage payment. And now that these great families just lost their loved ones, they’re in a mortgage-free home and that’s what $11 a month can do. People can go to t2t.org and I think that together we can take care of these great families.
Listen to the interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
